Shattered Dreams: Rise of KRAD
by waddledee1013
Summary: Leber was once a war hero who fought for the KRAD Union, now doomed to wander and reminisce among the ruins of the past. He reluctantly joins a band of freedom fighters, determined to make amends. Leber intends to exact revenge on the elusive, powerful organization and uncover its ulterior motives. As the unlikely individuals stage their final stand, their world is about to change.
1. Prologue: What Am I?

Shattered Dreams: The Reign of KRAD

How do we know if the world has been lost in the past? How do we know where the future is ready to take us? How do we know if we are headed in the wrong direction? We have so many questions about our kind, and our unanswered past has been largely left in ruin. Left amongst the amazing technological prowess of our great community, a federation of seven states, we are left with coexistence to spread to our people. I still ponder the reasons for which we exist.

This harkens back to a time where there was no hope in our midst when strange visitors arrived in what had become of the third world ever since the great massacres. The ominous visitants charismatically established themselves as the Union of the Ktenological Representamen of Abstergent Disillusionment, or KRAD Union, whose origins have never been heard of. They were to be the hope for our people as chaos oscillates its ugly head, against the disillusioned, defined by their impunity and arrogance in the light of malevolent destruction. Reality is truly an anomalous state of mind, beyond verisimilitude.

Our divided world was lost at a standstill of civil unrest and corruption until the liberators came to aid in our favor. Our governments and millions of our people peacefully supported their influence with great approbation in exchange for the allocation and logistics of resources toward benefiting their cause. I never had managed to voice my opinion about this matter, because I thought in the back of my shrouded mind that we had made a mistake. The secretive passing of the charter by the KRAD leadership grew into a set of laws in promoting that the future was calling and they were the answer. Not much is known about them. All we know is that we are caught in the middle. All they proclaimed was their grim belief in a world where intimidation and fear were of no trifling matter, and everyone had to join their side to be safe from disaster, a peace through power to even the odds in a growing conflict where sides did not matter, only if your will was to be forgotten among the useless deviants. Every person of the third world, regardless of difference, bolstered the extent of the KRAD economy.

You were a hero if you joined the cause for peace and impressed the next generation in the fight against oppression. You sought for balance in a world that has fractured its unions as governments cannot stand. Independence was defined by resistance, by revolution, to break the grasp of dominance. The balance was broken as the chaos was unleashed and the punished were executed. Manipulative monsters ran rampant in our world as anarchy spread among the dissidents and led them away. They had claimed to have seen the other side, beyond the walls that have defined our sovereignty. The thirst for madness has been quelled on numerous occasions. Our helpers had exacted revenge on the cruel, the corrupt, and the ignorant bastards that sent thousands off to die for a presumably rightful cause only with leaving the catastrophic results to befall their own dejected kind. Those who believed only in the nebulous KRAD philosophy entered into its domain. We were protected under their company through the jurisdiction of martial law, and the aggression was finally pacified until the undulation of the roughened waves had totally subsided. Our diseases were cured. We quelled the intolerable sentiments of the ruthless dictatorships, not warranting any shift.

Many of our people who felt oppression firsthand have had their spirits defiled and degraded. The actions endorsed by the militaries of the foreign intruders had maintained control over our occupied countries for far too long. I was among the many whose friends and loved ones were blown apart by their drones, forcing me to run and hide. Opposing them was contemplating suicide. As soon as the pain of death had agonized me to a great extent, I joined the KRAD defense forces in their fight against the aggression, to which the enemy swiftly responded to our challenge. The enemy were people who behaved as just and civil individuals, but under their cold exteriors were unjust hatred, coarseness, embitterment, greed, vanity, and corruption typical of the insane and malcontent folk.

Change was defined by a need in aspiration, yet uniformity was defined by a wealth in arrogance. Our nations had obtained their independence and had to sever the hand that plagued our kind for an epoch of tyranny for as long as my family and friends can remember, and end the reign as one. For five years I have borne no change in my heart about the imperialists and their intentions. I rose among the KRAD ranks to satisfy the desires for liberation and no longer live in fear. To them, I was a skilled warrior who believed in myself, not coerced to join the ranks of the heartless bastards who claim to fight for liberty but do not grant it to its own people, advocating much distrust. Marginalization was the understanding that presented us as weak and we needed to be as strong as them.

The KRAD military industrial complex, with the aid of the brightest minds from around the world, has allowed the technology to build up and advance at a frightening pace. Many KRAD bases were constructed and situated worldwide, gathering intelligence and strengthening its arms. The brutal elite trembled beneath our feet, the blood of the poor and middle class that was spilled was finally justified as they turned away from our homeland, divided and discomforted.

Existence was purely an underestimate in the views of the overarching KRAD ideology: change, in body, mind, and spirit. One of their many mantras upheld the idea that revolution is evolution, and they are the catalyst. Those who opposed the order were executed upon their demands, for they were unworthy and had simply vanished under the cover of night and left to die by the agents. The piles of foul cadavers that were carried around and disposed of in our cities were a testament to all who defied us. They were merely unwanted pollutants of our very being that had to be dispelled from our existence.

We were a force to be reckoned with, while the disillusioned fled like disorganized animals. I was one of their best soldiers who were granted with awards for their acts of bravery. I hunted the paroxysmal creatures until I shortened the time for their kind to witness the inevitable brink of extinction. Their united nations garnered out of their impulses had successfully created an unstable world that can never live in peace. We had matured far beyond such excessive practices.

The nations beyond our reach have branded the actions of the growing KRAD superpower with a deceitful epithet: The Evil Empire. They had defamed our loyal friends "terrorists," a word that I hate to imagine as several competing corporate agencies and defensive firms supported the ideology and leading figures, who had failed to follow the KRAD rules, were silenced by the KRAD agents who had no regard for their lives. They masked themselves underneath a cloak and dagger. They wanted them dead because they justified vengeance against their lost brothers, broken pieces. Even if our loyal followers died, they achieved divinity for showing no mercy toward the weak. For every time that a volatile reaction of any kind appeared, we knew that it would render self-destruction.

Coming from our enemy's own country were of their own kind, untrustworthy of their corrupt government, fighting for our side, showing that the deceitful imperialists could be trusted, but it only came from the extremists whose state was holding their freedoms against them.

Our weapons vanquished the spirits of the embittered, expecting a lengthy campaign. Their ideology was bleeding profusely as our forces surrounded the wounds as a collective swarm of mosquitoes. The sky concealed our presence as a stormy night purged their devastated domains. The day was won.

The survivors had joined our side and fought well against the rest of them. I was impressed at their capacity to fight with courage and honor and slaughter the animals underneath the feeble objectifications that undermined their very selves. Sadly, the radical turncoats were also broken pieces that had to be discarded.

Our advanced war machine, combined with the capacity to annihilate without any regards for ethicality, effectively and swiftly outnumbered, outperformed, and outmaneuvered as it instilled fear into millions on the battlefield and overseas. It was now checkmate. Like their military, the disorganized youth scoured among the bleak ruins. The enemy had fallen prey to the many diseases that we poisoned their traitorous blood with. The eruption of suppression and atrocities within and beyond our reaches were just the beginning. Our Evil Empire had the world under its hands. Our presence alone silenced the dying lies.

I retired from the armed forces soon afterward, and still sought for lust at twenty one years old. My job was done. I had paved the way for a new initiative of the next generation. The world was safe from imperialist aggression. I wander among the graves of the fallen cities that have become our domain. The people of the years past, the ones who once existed before us, endangered the KRAD leadership as a group that couldn't be trusted, for they stigmatized the KRAD constituency as an organization of conspiring death merchants, willing to end it all. They did not care about me, or my people, or anyone who lived outside of the influence of the great empire. They advocated the dissent of those who planted seeds of totalitarianism into the minds of the individual world who believed in the cause for a just peace. The KRAD order could never be challenged, as they had no care for the once dominative legacy of the foolish weak. They could oppose our might to only risk being effortlessly crushed by our feet. I could only surmise as to what the KRAD army has done for the public to justify its views.

We were not aware that we all had blood on our hands, that we were ever wrong at all. My thoughts about the Union and all its movements and convictions changed with time as our influence overshadowed the old order, a growing utopian society. For a period of time, I was convinced by the beliefs of my former comrades to inspect the ruins, even if it was against the law for veterans to wander outside the empty borders. The martial law was bitterly conducting its operations on its newly acquired territory through military action. One day, my stimulated curiosity had subsequently urged me to silently escape my dwelling.

I soon came across the entrance to an underground tunnel outside one of our cities, among the squalor of the ruined past. Outside our cities, countless detainment camps contained myriads of the uncivilized disillusioned, fighting for pitiful refuse and groaning, worthless animals, staring at me as I wandered along the pits with anger in their glowing eyes, horridly fervent complexions of despair. I packed little food and water and ventured away from the cities while narrowly avoiding the night patrols of automated hounds that behaved like animals, yet were constituted in the likeness of heartless, soulless machines with artificial intelligence. These things were only one of the countless modems with a purpose to satisfy the demand for a better world. My travels have led me far and wide toward the large black cave that towered over my head. Transfixed to the overwhelming shadow was the noxious miasma of despair. The bleak tunnel reeking of the corpse mines, piles of blackened, burned bodies, filled the decadent air. A dim ethereal veil infused through my skin and swallowed my very soul.

In the cavernous pits, I wince from a light, and was approached by a group of five teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds, who viewed themselves as an organization of freedom fighters. I felt the despair in their eyes, as they had felt the pains as I had, as disposable slaves. I had joined as a member of their group, no longer another object to be discarded. They told me that I had to join their resistance because all others had fallen, their last chance for succession, for the KRAD authority has the capability to track their every move and employ the most advanced weaponry that the world has ever seen. They have the power to destroy life itself. My mission is to bring down the empire, but not afford to kill any innocent people. Our mission is to aid all the oppressed from filling the growing void. We are known as HOPE. We will rip the iron curtain. We will demolish the wall. We will subdue the despair. HOPE will prevail. I have answered the call for change when the voices of others have long been silenced. My conscience is clear. Our plan will be enacted to inhibit the plans of the new government, and we will be remembered for our actions, as true heroes. I forgive my brothers for what I am about to do. I may even have to kill all of them to set things right. I hope that this contingency plan will work, for our last ditch effort will surely face grave opposition by the personified reaper that is the KRAD executioner.

KRAD will fall to their knees. Their world will no longer stand. Our new world will rise again.

My name, as I have always kept in secret, has always been Leber, a rather odd name that I treasure. I will never allow them to take anyone or anything from us. I am willing to risk my life to serve my new allies against the unknown enemy. Bonds will be forged and destroyed with time. Chances will be taken that I hope will shift the odds in our favor. My unequivocal strength and will as a soldier are about to be pushed beyond its limits.

It is the time. Now, I make my final stand.


	2. Chapter 1: How I Think and How I Am

The night has fallen upon us. Our hopes were predicated on the few sources of light that we had, so insignificant, so vulnerable, so meek, that leaving out on the open would leave them to be suffocated by the wind's disheartening whisper. We stood close to them as they glowed and revealed some source of the cave. Though the devices were primitive, we relied on them like the ancients had done when they were hidden in the caves, with little food and water to satisfy our content. The fortunes of victory come at a cost, a long ways away, so aloft and obscured. Our futures were hanging like the inkling beauty of the stars above us, so numerous and vast.

My comrades had found themselves in the deepest part of the cave, lying in wait around a fire. The warmth of the fire kindled the pressures of my past weighing on my cold, burdened body, a sad shell that was consumed by hopelessness and despair, so enticing as if it were love.

I had once had something to strive for above the gains of the nationalistic pride of our people. That wish had disappeared long ago, and that earnest feeling had come back to life.

What drew my sense of honor was from that of the members of the liberators, who had been watching me and have heard about my viced intentions. They originally saw me as a threat to united nations' interests. To the rest of the world, I had been made a minor subservient by the relentless propaganda machine.

Some of my comrades had been technologically manipulated overseas to leave their decadent western ways and join the enlightened movement.

I could still be reasoned with, even with the hollowness that composes my grim, cryptic mind with the emptiness bored by radicalism. Deep within it were the memories of shock and horror at my capabilities as a warrior. To my dismay, I was surprised and overzealous about how I could incite fear not by my expression.

I was like a shadow, a spirit, looming amongst the many, preying on the insignificance that resonates within them, displaying their foolishness to even challenge me and my skills. Before, I feel that I am like an animal, relying on instinct to stay alive, not by abstract reasoning at all. Now, I am a convict, a maverick, a criminal, on the scent of the pursuers, hunting my kind. They have gashed and battered the cadavers of the hopeless, bleak cries hushed by the veil.

Dwelling on the questions of my being, pondering on the reasons for why I exist, I find that there are no right answers. They are but dust blowing in the wind, lost by the discourse. With tenacity I thrive with burdens to bear, and I pray that they will all someday be lifted up. My constant anxiety for the loss of my loved ones will have to go away. I now have a family, a rather effusive one at that. However, few of its members were raucous and insinuating in their odd behaviors.

My shelter is my home that I defend for my life. Nature has forged it, and nature will allow it to stand starkly proudly and boldly, against the towering foundations of the enigmatic collective. The beauty of the past has come to take us under its wonder and awe of vagrant beauty.

For how I am alive today, I play mental transmissions in my head, imagining what would happen if I managed to not come across the strange place, a haven and an asylum. Most of us see it like a maze, and some of us see it as a prison. I imagine it as a restraining order. The void is enveloping around us like a cold mist that cannot be cleared from our deluded perceptions. We are cogently trapped.

It surpasses even higher than the mountains and sinks deeper beneath the abysmal waters.

My earnestness cannot break these bonds that forcefully hold my gains against my losses.

The views of the strangers show some form of restraint in their falsely bold countenances.

Some of them were younger than me, some were older than me, but they respected me.

I was like the big brother, but I still had some authority as an adult that had some grievances.

Whenever I had some people that I could trust, I adhered to their word like it was a bondage.

The many who existed before us strived for unity and protection from outside influences that hampered their interests as a flock, a mindless herd, running in disarray. We were together.

Looking further into the cave, there were enormous shadows brooding and rising in the void, scaring us to an extent, but we knew that we were playing tricks on one another. By launching rocks against the crenelated walls, echoes reverberated across the space, lightening the tones.

Through our voices, we also gave our shadows life, meaning, and purpose along with the atmosphere.

The joy and fullness of life had now dissipated from its ethereal composure, no need to go on.

We were struck with awe and curiosity as the paths widened around the chasm, but we did not want to get lost in the bowels of the deep cave, so we stayed in the particular safe spot.

Some of us looked into the fire, and some of us looked away from the fire. Soon, the fire had died out, signaling that we had to rest. I was rather tired from my exploration of the unknown.

I could feel that my muscles were wearing. I could see that my eyes were feeling rather blurry.

My mind had to shut down, for it had learned too much, for it had become self-aware. It has life, it has meaning, and it has purpose. It made me who I am as an individual, I as me.

My conscience is clear. I know who I am. Me and my brethren share one goal, one mission.

As I rest, I reminisce of my past and future. I see myself running away, now running forward.

The ones who have come before me have faced problems in coping with their weakness.

Now, the ones who will come after me will have already dealt with the cause of the problems.

What has become a plague has been cured from its source and all the many infected hosts.

The vaccine, the cure, the end-all has yet to be ascertained with the overshadowing lies.

These supernatural occurrences are but figments, mere afterthoughts of our personalities.

A conflict between our disillusive reasoning and the fabricative unknown is now at play.

We are playing a game, and it is not checkmate, but somehow, we know we must be careful.

We are playing with our fates in this game, which may take our entire lives to find if we lose.

We are playing with advantages and disadvantages, and we need to assess our capabilities.

I have yet to execute this contingency plan effectively, because we know the consequences.

Based on what I have discovered about how the plan for freedom has formulated was discussed through the bold and charismatic leader of the group, the rebels who rose up against the KRAD tyranny but was forced to flee from the advance of the war machine.

These rebels were actually organized through means of covert operations to investigate the KRAD conspiracy and its suspicious activity that challenged the norms of a non-state actor. The rebels were garnered as a last ditch effort of the fractured united nations to cut the profits.

The KRAD economy, through what I learned, earned its capital through stimulating, profiting, and exploiting the research and development through means of its military arsenal, which were endorsed by the platformist political motivations to expand the influence of the empire as it spanned the world. All those conflicts between the united nations and the KRAD government were but means of taking advantage of every side and forcing them to kill each other. It was a war over a loss of trust that was carried out in total secrecy. Selling weapons of mass destruction, the KRAD motivations for world domination were already schemed, and an insurrection within the boundaries of the company presence was necessary to bring down the KRAD superpower, so that peace may finally be restored.

Thankfully, we cannot have direct contact with the united nations that oversees our questionable actions. We are supported by a UN-backed independent covert peacekeeping agency supported by the special counterterrorism division that is only known as DREAM. We based my entourage, HOPE, to go with its name, for we both work hand in hand, yet our goals are supplanted by DREAM. We do not know of how it came about. Their agents had recruited us to fulfill their mission. Many of the cohorts that make up the task force were primarily mercenaries for hire and war-hardened commandoes who served as excellent training partners. DREAM was a portion of our stipulation as part of our agreement that had to prepare us for any encounters with the KRAD anarchy in all of its manifestations. Each of the members, some of whom were the most elite members of specialized military branches, were tasked with undermining the power of the consortium.

The Evil Empire cannot be reasoned with in the trusted eyes of just and civilized individuals.

The ones that stand will somehow fall, but we have to find out how, with no help to guide us.

The method to deal with this most grave situation must be approached with systematically.

All the burdens in the world amounts on my final stand. HOPE will prevail. It just has to.

I remember the time when I still had a sense of sympathy, and now, it has been lost as immediately for when my friends were lost to the drones. Those frightening shapes and the howls of the sweeping wings that never buzzed instilled fear into my people as the insects relentlessly strafed us with a series of assaults in swarms. People only had seconds to react as they scrambled for the houses and taverns, hearing the screeches of the animals soaring overhead, or else they would be filled with bullets. The weapons had no care for our friends and loved ones as dozens of civilians were silently falling along the roads. Some of them were equipped with gas weapons that ravaged our villages. Revolting bodies of men, women, and children were screaming with such horror that the horrified doctors could not treat them, and the wailing innocents were tossed in piles. There were so many casualties that they had to be burned and their remains were lost in the corpse mines in caves to decay over time. They were the blackened bones of the past that have broken and shattered, left filling the ruined grounds. Those drones that were once hunting us were now being hunted by us. With the help of our allies, we managed to exploit the insignificance of the drones by every make and model and develop a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles that were not directly controlled by organic operators. These drones had their own degree of sentience, their own free will, but had to survive under the confines of their programming with executing impressive aerial maneuvers. A single person could maintain an entire fleet of drones to stealthily fly above enemy airspace as well as perform daring strikes to attack key military holdings in the imperialists' bases. We even had our drones go head-to-head with their drones in daring dogfights and bombing runs above our cities and the areas occupied by the imperialists. Much of our drones had the advantage over theirs because of the advanced targeting systems and a wide array of weapons to fulfill their roles, since they were developed from previously existing industrial materials and technology acquired by unknown means. The drones of the future were major propaganda assets for our growing independent nation, and proved to be a starting point for utilizing the same technology to create other machines of different makes and models to perform certain tasks that we could not do alone, yet still proved beneficial to other foreign militaries. This marked the significant growth of our arsenal with the addition of drones, as we nearly matched the strength of the rivaling powers with the mass modernization of the mechanized consumables. The exchange in the commodity that was the drone had also furnished a ecosystem before it, in essence, evolved as an animal over time.

They became more aware of their actions and were still integrated with the exact same programming to fit their design and carry out the tasks, and with new technological modifications, the drone was an expendable tool just like everything else that comprised of our military industrial complex. Yet at the same time, ethicality was removed from the equation, and they remained as silent murderers of the sky that instilled fear into any of their approach, in the form of fighters, bombers, and helicopters, developed only to destroy. They were just like guns that could shoot for themselves, without impulse, without intimidation, without any second-thoughts, as they were devoid of reasoning to begin with. Thus, the objects proved formidable foes on the battlefield and coarse competition in the business world. Of course, our government had to keep the stories of our victories as well as the horrible atrocities a secret. Those who knew of our actions were eliminated against their will. From my first experiences with the monsters, I have long knew of what terror they brought.

Based on what I have inferred, the effectiveness of the liaison has originated within the overarching views of how the organization has exhibited its growth and development in its political, economic, and military field that surely goes beyond the expenditures and consolidations for which the expansion relies on to continue its existence. Much of the work has been confined in secrecy, yet not all of the details are fully revealed. There must be a way for which the constituency has managed to fabricate these false images, feed us the right information that is actually intended to be wrong, alter our perceptions that are merely summarized in the views of one of millions. These grave issues are made known as if they are commonplace, each always happening. Fathoming a sense of individuality is almost hopeless with all the horrible circumstances. Thus, we are all overshadowed by exhortation.

Breaking the barriers that have defined ourselves, we have surmounted the peak formed by the depressing collective viewing, and we someday hope to have flown beyond the stars.

So many of our woes of the world, formulated by our own doubts of what the very world we live in, produce more questions that we can ever ask, and that is the enigma that draws us all to solve the mystery within us, the zenith that we must reach beyond, the depths we must fathom, the powers for which we shall surpass with the temerity and strength within us to overcome it all.

This strange world is sewn by a fringed thread that weaves and spins around our very being.

The mien will be unraveled for us to observe what is within the world underneath.

A corrupted phantom looms over the graveyards of our solemn pasts, a ghastly, frightening representation of our brushes with death and destruction that have made us as individuals. The souls gather, sing and dance in their solemn pleasantries, soaring into the skies, all those very thoughts pushing to ascertain their sense of reality, are those that belong to us as well. We want to escape. We want to be free. We want to have hope in ourselves and chilling, foreboding atmosphere is nothing to fear as we turn away from the wicked. The voices of the pure want to be heard. The views of the absolute want to be perceived. Everything that is existential rests on our premonitions, for our enemy wants nothing more. Whatever is shrouded by the doubts of the future or overwhelmed by the natural fears of the unknown, there will be a light that will shine in the enveloping discontent of our entire being.

The very understanding, the questions we ask, are simply perceived as grains of sands. The very grains are disintegrated by the waters and reformed again in the voluminous numbers. All the things that are individual mysteries in their own right are interconnected in their own way, each extrapolating beyond what is conceived from the perpetual boundaries of normalcy.

We do not wish to break the threads that hold us, or else we will lose our trust in reality.

We do not wish for the pressures to consume us and distort our judgments of what we see.

We do not wish for the mind to remain useless in this endeavor, as we will be lost to our fate.

The fates that pull each of us one by one toward our eventual demise will need to be halted.

From the struggles between the people that I have once viewed as stable, sane, and rational and the other way around have ruined my perception of life as I had viewed them as enemies.

From this, I feel that I've been inclined to believing my rather odd suppositions betwixt with the supernatural and the unknown, now misguiding them for pieces of expendable technology. What lies in these strange ominous machinations for which the KRAD contractors employ is some strange sense of disillusionment when comparing their weapons to monsters of myth.

I am vehemently denying, being resentful and reticent of the reason that forges the products.

The visceral shortcomings of our premonitions lay deep in our own unstable mental psyche. We are seeing things that we have never seen before. Everything we know might as well be a lie. All work and no play has made us dull beings by our irreverently strange fantasies. Our sense of innocence has been ruined by our insistences that have obscured our limitations.

We are agents of betrayal, which has been determined from our allegedly KRAD encounters.

We accept our fate but do not want to deny our fate. It is like a black hole that consumes us.

We come out of our holes as changed individuals, and we want our existence to be remembered.

There will be millions of men and women around the world knowing of our names and actions.

They will be no longer be weeping for their sorrows that are filling our blasphemous minds.

The people in their graves haunt our spirits with harrowing warnings of our fates. We ignore.

From what I have seen from the haunting images, I have deduced that there is a way to expose the true worth of the strange objects juxtaposed in the overshadowing miasma to which there are no boundaries or guides to point the track out of the mind enveloping trap.

This trap as you know of it is more than something that appears in one place. The trawl is everywhere, as we are lonely groups of fish multiplying and soaring among the cool waters, with something waiting to snatch us from our comfort zone and force us away from our lives. There, everything we see is a glowing light as we rest upon the table, unable to speak or even move, and we are gouged apart and sliced into pieces, a memory which we can not imagine.

Our remains are discarded by the others with the intentions of an insatiable satisfactory want. That want will never be accomplished with how they treat our kind lost toward utter extinction.

We end up like the animals that form the united nations, totally unable to collectively respond, relying on an instinctual impulse that blinds our very senses, separated from our confines. This sense of self-security is quite necessary for us to survive in this bleak community, yet we must not go insane and force our inner stability to the ground where it can never reform again.

The memory disappears, where no one can hear, see, or feel again, a strong disconnection. By wandering toward a deprivation and seclusion of one's self, one dies and rots in his grave like useless filth. No one can change that. Only, as it appears, the KRAD forces that loom over the orders of the entire world, watching us with its menacing eye that glosses through the providence. We run. We never stop. We never scream. We never look. We never turn. We stay alive. When we have to, we are forced to fight. We are forced to kill. We fulfill our status quo. Based on what I have thought of the gross terminuses of the lost cave which I inhabit, I have managed to ponder in isolation. I imagine being inside a dreary military installation, a KRAD military installation that deteriorates our strong minds and bodies until we eventually kill ourselves.

The reason for why such solitary confinements, combined with the uniformity of an assembly line and the periphery of a simple grey box, perform our menial tasks and never doing any more, the monotony of our actions dissipating our selves at the expense of the propitious state. We receive benefits, yet they are material, so I question of the necessity of why we succumb to such practices that have been heralded by the outsiders. Something that we can never replicate is the feeling of ourselves through these peculiar machinations and odd modems.

We are like castaways packed tight aboard a slaveship rising and falling on murky waters, and have arrived at our destination, yet we are called by our fellow kin to bring down our masters, to which this rather barbarous plan is rather horrible in its motive.

We have signed our death warrants, but we are not expected to meet the demands. We all simply decline the offerings.

This solemn trek has set all of us on the path to oblivion with no real results. My will is to make our dream a reality. Our approach to victory is finally sought.


	3. Chapter 2: My Friends and I

What if I told you was not the full truth? Even in the so-called perfect world, there are still problems that cannot be solved. I had the very same revelations when my former family and I were debating over whether or not to join the enemy, the very same sentiments that transpired over how I would exist. Our rivals were waging a brutal war against our kind. They were fighting like exterminators that were cleansing our areas of the inferior beings. The united nations had managed to instill fear into our hearts of their rather barbarous tactics, yet they still were in essence quickly becoming the architect of their own demise. Our hearts and minds were wiped out and erased from the views of existence once the vengeance for each nation toward their differences, condemning themselves of warranting their own destruction.

We would see trailing comets streak above the skies and quickly implode upon themselves.

A prolonged barrage of enormous explosions loomed over the gloomy ruins of the past.

Thousands of suns burned in the glow of the world. As night fell over them with projecting a phantasmic veil, particles of black rain plummeted to the ground and poisoned everything.

Millions were slowly dying, throngs of victims running to the shelters, seeking to be reconciled.

Men were retreating into the shadows of their former shelves. Life is no longer a commodity.

It is a cruel meaning of existence that forces the many to cower in fear of their annihilation.

No longer was a thing remotely delicate, as a thing has no shape, only an abstract meaning.

There is no refuge, as the many are forced to preserve their being in the ruined world alone.

Yet the ones who band together to survive have some rate of success, yet it is still very slim.

When delving our minds into the activity that the KRAD Union has partaken in, the general consensus is that it extrapolates its self-destructive desires beyond that of a terrorist group.

It maintains a relentlessly harrowing image with its reflective glass that cannot be shattered, for the ones who even attempt to damage it are dealt with insurmountable pain and trauma. We have no idea how to refute that variant understanding, yet we have something else to prove.

The KRAD idol is symbolized by the way at which it operates beyond satisfying the desires of death being manufactured and distributed in the like of bitterly cold, heartless machinations.

It has this presence to it that proves to be truly nihilistic encompassing its rather auspicious conception.

Whether we believe it or not, the KRAD cloak had long been wrapped around our bodies, and, after being stripped from our wearing bodies, we have discovered that it actually acts good.

Yet the passions of corporate greed seem to be our only leads in how the enemy has gotten so powerful from its aggressive profiteering overseas with the selling of advanced weapons.

Something rather disturbing haunts the wastelands of territories that the superpower has managed to control with its brutal tactics with complete disregard for ethicality, yet converted them into massive technological monoliths of countless industries all merged into one entity.

The figurehead of the collective has agents, officers, and military leaders situated all around the world, each controlled by the laws that govern every citizen and civilian and not let them interfere.

Some of the actions that they are linked to are extremely bloody violence and hidden bribery.

Much of the information about these actions is very limited due to much of the achievement of their methods of silencing the people by the government who truly holds the absolute power.

Consummated is an extenuated notion of discordance and exploitation at the peoples' expense.

It seems so contemporary and traditional that such self-destruction is proven to be necessary.

Everything that is done is done, yet it is only insatiable in our enemies' sadistic desires.

So much of our kindness is extinguished when refuting the legends about this mysterious foe.

The first person that I encountered in the confines of the cave was a teenager of occidental origin, coming from formerly, one of the most powerful nations in the world. His name is George, and he knows little of me already. My suppositions of him were already manifested. Judging by his personality, I think he does little to care of me at all. All the common views of the bloodthirsty, chauvinistic, corrupt, arrogant, and self-centered people who see themselves as exceptional, the only exceptional, and the only ones who want to spread their beliefs by means of forcing them down others' throats. Thankfully, the mysticism is not totally present.

He is somewhat nice, as he proves himself to be a just and relatable fellow, yet he is sometimes wanting to be a hero, all the time, no matter the risks, to preserve his legacy. He is like the foil, the complete opposite to me, yet we lived in extremely fanatical times. Both of us were living in a time where our leaders were launching us in the wrong direction. If we were used as soldiers to justify our policies, there is no real purpose with the annihilation of individuality, produced in the same people who survive among the ambience of the greats. Essentially, we are all being possessed, as pawns, yet on the inside, we each are all scared.

George embodies the potency of all of our views of him being raised to the beliefs of a society of, formerly, the greatest country in the world, magnified through his meagre possessions. His sunglasses and ten-gallon hat that he doesn't always wear accentuates his disguised stature, while at the same time his emotions prevent him from freezing into a stony figure. He wears a necklace of bones of animals that come from his deserts that he belonged in. We already live under the idea that he has become already used to it, as he was once a bounty hunter who worked for the enemy and had centered himself toward finding criminals for his superiors that were apprehended, tortured, and eliminated. Life was a game to him, for the reward was beyond the satisfaction of living, more secretive to him at an individual level that he has never told our group. The miscreants were people targeted and dispatched as internal dissenters and common cutthroats. Yet at the same time, he was endangering innocent people, his friends, for crimes they never committed, implicated in helping the disillusioned. He was charged with eliminating any threats to the big business.

The KRAD authority had obligated their tamed predators to track the scent of the mavericks and eventually catch them in their tracks. They were the ones who killed them. Now, the only guide that George has is himself and us, no longer being dictated by the masters. Those possessions, however, mean so much to him as much as we value our exhibitions.

The minor significance lies in the desires, the inconsistencies that define us, and our mistakes pull us together through delaying the inevitable, one useless object at a time. George's show-off attitude is grasped by his unwavering desire to be pleased by excessively simple things. Food is the one thing that he ends up wanting to stop for, drawn into the consumerist temptation. His escalating tensions between us were oblique toward serving only himself, and he never acted awkwardly for it either.

The tragic sense that sets him from the rest of us is that he actually tries to contend with concealing it instead of being so boisterous with his demeanor and ruining himself socially. We even have seen him playing about with his knife and thrusting his strength against the insurmountable, alone, seeing him kicking and punching, pretending to be a hero, being unaware of us and only taking us several moments for him to snap out of his little uncorrelated world.

We even have seen him come out of the mouth of the cave, surrounded by the enormous limelight, to shoot at rocks with his variety of united nations-provided guns. We think that he is using ammunition as he attempts to become psychotic and crazy yet bitterly sarcastic as he reads our rather disturbed and sometimes relieved body language. George also sometimes, due to his ignorance, gets himself into situations that greatly burden his social intellect that oftentimes produces rather odd results. One instance has him fuming in rage when he finds that he doesn't have any source of western-produced food on the third-world so-called wasteland to satisfy himself for only a few minutes even when he locates such sources.

In truth, his appetite for destruction can be seen as a handicap, yet it keeps him fixated on something to alleviate the problems of fighting in a war where rations aren't always there. His machismo is shown toward us and the enemy that shows little to no noticeable emotion. At the same time, we are aware that we all have flaws of our own kind, and through our decentralized leadership, we each improve on ourselves as we await to witness our purpose.

Our minds are perforated by these foreign ideas like receiving a shot through the brain, yet it never wears off. It penetrates our very being and injects a soluble agent designed to correct. Our world changes as we are introduced and engrossed in a myriad of different viewpoints.

One of these rather strange ones comes from another person of the middle class from another occidental area, reduced to living a poor person in a village that belonged to his ancestors. He is a teenager named Mark, an athlete with the personality to prove his strength in his mental and physical sense. Mark aspires to be a hero as well. He has also become a studier of weapons across different fields, and has developed a passion for such instruments, regardless of their ethicality, that he acts a little crazy. The way that he names his weapons after his friends that he lost in battle as trophies to remember them by, to which I find rather odd. My people once had the same issues become we were enlightened, questioning ourselves and never being stuck in the past. For Mark's case, that has never been fully addressed through his possessions. His stuttering stammer startles him greatly and has left him somewhat timid toward his comrades. His brash personality is very headstrong, and his obsession clouds his judgment and thus force him in another direction. He also claims to have seen dead people and ghosts, but only when he is alone. Even the rest of us do not believe in such superstitions. The only things we keep watch for are lights glowing in the sky from the mouth of the cave, for foreign hostile aircraft that conduct search and destroy operations. He views everything abnormal as related to the enemy.

The man has long known of sabotage. When dusk had fallen, he swore an invariable vengeance to his steadfast KRAD employers.

He had written several dissertations about a major potential collusion linked back to the organization.

For a long time, he was a master of propaganda and persuasion, fabricating rumors himself.

He has been an advocate of large-scale government cover ups in his age of reasoning. At the same time, his malevolent mind is gradually being degenerated into nothingness by his own vexed accusations. However, we do not know how and why he joined us in the first place.

He was a social outcast who was sheltered from his poor family, as the boy yearned for hope.

From what I have heard from Mark, he was a scholarly journalist on current issues and was personally appointed by the enemy to promote the growth of the new world order through propaganda. Some of his friends were at the institution, yet they all had mysteriously passed.

The implementation of new ideas of enlightenment excited the boy, yet he was insecure. He tried to warn of the agents, yet it was already too late. He had spent much of his life living a lie under the anomalous system and was disgusted by the dissonant shape of the incongruent imagery constantly being repeated in the same sated mannerisms of a stunted conformity. By impassively living in the same room for so long, a prison with a pen, paper, and a desk, the monotonous depictions had almost reflected his inner feelings. He decided to secretly leave the propaganda building under the cover of night, and his family was taken away from the agents. They were never seen again. He had seldom spoke of it, as his entire body nearly lost control. The last thing that he saw was a light in the sky, one of possibly extraterrestrial origin. The thing in the clouds was probably a helicopter or airplane, yet it was not a weather balloon.

Mark roamed the streets and ran blindly into the night without a guide or sense of direction. He was screaming at the passing motorists on the roads, asserting that they were all in danger and they will be subverted by the KRAD collective, yet he had nothing to attest to his assumption. He nearly went insane at that time. Underneath the twilight, he was meandering through the crowds and was saved by one of his good friends who escaped the facility unharmed, confined under the conditions of solitude.

From then on, the friend had brought with him an agent of the united nations to take him under their wing, and Mark was no longer a fledgeling to be sheltered by the bitter storms. The traumatic torture that he received at the concentration camp was purely psychological, as no hostility or violence was exchanged, yet it was executed through an expression of thought and articulation of language, combined with the idea that one was always being watched.

Even in his drawings, he struggles to encapsulate the meaning of individuality and freedom, for it was degenerating enough for his moral mind to repeat the same task over and over. He and his brothers Luke, Mark, and John are all journalists who have spoken the truth of the KRAD lies.

Mark is somewhat bigoted, but does not have that much of a strong voice of a leader. He is a leader who is hidden, obscured by the perpetual blackness of his own mental discontent. The man is somewhat of a pervert as a distorted degenerate with a greatly disturbed persona. He seems rather cold when observing the women that are around his age with envious eyes. Mark cannot contain himself when he is entranced by the opposite sex. It is almost as if he has a personal retribution with his conflicted self that is resolved through his encounters. His suggestions of any innuendo-related register have left him victimized by his tendencies.

He is possessed, driven by his lust, only trying to protect his new family and his sisters. His sense of honor is corrupted by his societal norms in the belief that he acts for everything that threatens his well-being and the well-being of his potential mates. He is dying for attention.

Everything to him has to come with a price and a reward, which is accentuated by objects.

These objects are no longer people, only elucidated things that presuppose pleasurous pleas.

Mark is a being who is trapped within his very desires that may possibly never come true.

Yet he still has a good side through his reasoning, coupled by his will to challenge himself to always try new things, yet he turns it out and thus forces his conscience down a deep chasm.

To an extent, his bad side is accompanied by his will to be consumed by bitter revenge. He is forced down into a chasm and only has the courage to finally snap out of it. He enjoys his excessive pride and joy over menial things that have to do with his sensuous pleasantries.

As a warrior, his lust makes him distracted, yet he fights with the hand of a dead man, one that strikes fear into our enemies when squinting and revealing a intimidating snarl of anger.

He is also somewhat of a tactician who analyzes the area and determines the time to act. Mark has even said himself to have a mysterious sixth sense present within his viewings of the grave beyond, reinforced by his involvement in conspiracy theories and the paranormal.

He has the power to imagine the presence of superstitious vibes detected in the KRAD vicinity.

In spite of his idiosyncrasies, Mark is an avid asset that allows us to explore the unknown.

However, a callous consequence lies in the depression of his inner self that greatly ruins him.

He taps into the past and present and imagines the future in order to set us on the right path.

At the same time, I still feel strange around the three females of our group, as they can be somewhat of a bother to deal with their rather odd problems. Thankfully, at least one of them has a lover and does not have the urge to get in my way of pleasure. The first woman of the group was an effective explosive expert fully trained as a natural at sixteen, hailing from one of the neighboring eastern nations that experienced corruption at its finest, and quickly lost all control in a brutal civil war. Her name was Aria. She was always fascinated by sports, something that was reserved for men, yet she proved to be a natural at the game of baseball, an expert at the position of pitcher. At a young age, she was caught in the crossfire of her divided homeland, trying to fend for her younger sisters who were being stalked by the forces of a brutal dictator as they roamed the roads. Even as her parents were eventually evacuated to safety with the aid of the peacekeeping forces that were intervening in the area to halt the conflict with negotiations, but the destruction raged throughout her entire country. Much of the world was entering into a panic when democratic interests were threatened. She was prey to the vagrants on the streets, being forced to learn to throw incendiary grenades like baseballs at oncoming officers in tanks.

When there was no hope for her to run in fear, Aria was forged into a soldier by the honor of the loyalist military and trained to bring down the separatists that weren't doing it purely for the promise of prominence. The impingement by the separatists was a swift and brutal execution that caught her homeland unaware. They raided the capital and wrecked the foundations of civility. Since then, the crumbled country had been forced into a splintered status. A depressing KRAD umbra encompassed over the embittered environs. The entropy was spreading across the deserted region like a disease, seizing many, assaulting neighboring nations to bring them into the war. Sanctions were implemented. Large scale aerial operations by intervening nations clouded the skies with fire and smoke. Foreign soldiers marched along the battlefield.

She had been one of the thousands of poor souls to roam the battlefield of the bloodiest engagement of the civil war, one that would decisively change the entire course of the war. On the brink of death against one of the foe's tanks, she was saved by one of the rebel turncoats who secretly was working for the united nations forces that were trying to restore the status quo. His name was Aryeh, a childhood friend who then disclosed information to her. This mysterious warrior only left the woman confused and confounded as she tried to get his attention and reveal his identity behind a mask and a shrapnel-blackened trenchcoat with a black helmet.

She continued to shatter the fragmented leadership of the enemy, still searching for a mate.

By the time that the dictator was arrested and executed for his crimes, Aria had returned to her unstable country that was still undergoing chaos in the streets and suffering from famine. She had the gall to challenge the fractured authority in the remnants of several resisting insurgent groups, still vying for complete control.

In trying to cope with the pains of existence in a country with a social uprising that forced much of the nation into complete collapse, forcing the valiant and gallant to rise above the weak and bring down the useless and the corrupt, the girl was at more than a mere standstill. Yet this could be applied to both sides in the struggle for the dominance of the new republic. Even as a member of the contingency forces, she still tries to win herself over to the men.

She eventually approached a group of KRAD agents who were seeking to build relief facilities and provide for the people displaced by the conflict. They protected the civilians and leadership with a large arsenal of weapons and granting monetary aid. The KRAD organization intended to mediate the conflict themselves by supplying the demands of the insurgents. Those demands were revealed to be undercover weapons carried over to allied states. They had also suppressed several rebellions. Aria was briefly incorporated into the KRAD defense forces that maintained security over their clandestine operations. Huge weapons factories loomed over ruins like mountains. Being convinced that she was fighting for the wrong side, she took part in terrorizing the fraudulent pro-government forces with a multitude of explosive weapons.

Eventually, a mysterious man in a mask, Aryeh, had rescued her and immediately informed her that the reason for this aggressive stipulation was a deception all along. She was together with him for several weeks, fending for themselves as the KRAD forces searched for her, a vital asset to their hidden proliferation of armaments.

She had also been convinced that the rebellion was merely an inside job conducted by the KRAD conspirators right under their perceptions. It was a disorderly conflict beyond the tools that construct and undermine the hopes of supporting containment over a total disregard for an unjustified ethicality. Deserters had to be eliminated.

She eventually joined the united nations yet she never saw her boyfriend again, even if their relations were intimate and only platonic. No violence was exchanged.

Regardless, we have reasons to believe that the warmongers had obtruded their sway through an intruded leverage of the rebellions in her country as well as many others worldwide. Extortion was a medium that allowed the proliferation of deadly instruments to aid the rebellion, and even when the channel of distrust had run dry, somehow, it flowed again. The river could not be stopped, flowing like the blood of a perfectly healthy murderer. The Empire gripped the region with a pulsating iron fist.

We were always aware by those jade green eyes of suspicion with decorated cyan eyelashes underneath the shade of the flowing brown hair that she was hunting for every possible moment. Despite her experiences in the KRAD channel, she is unable to fathom its depths. At the same time, she always wanted to impress, yet that, to an extent, distracted her from the task at hand in regards to her careless mistakes when dealing with high grade explosive materials. She always loves handling with dangerous things to the point that it is her deemed interest and passion as much as the rest of us.

Her innocent complexion was contorted from the influx of the western way of life when being exposed to different cultures and norms.

Aria has this certain charm to her in spite of her barking and grumbling typical of a woman who has a liking for fashion, something that I struggle to deal with in the other females. Yet Aria proves to be an asset by her courage and talent with insurmountable odds with such a disregard for others at time in order to accomplish the task at hand.

Another one of the more peculiar types is much more of a snooty simpering princess in terms of her wealth in arrogance. She has this kind heart, but it is obscured by her shadowy lifestyle of a pacified pampering. She presents a passive-aggressive personality toward any who agree or disagree with her views on any issue. However, this rather boisterous provocative reveals much of her affluence with an odd vigor under her tentative provenance.

She is likely the emanated embodiment of the immorality of opulence. She was a descendant of a royal family from centuries past with similar conditions even now. Much of her former life was overshadowed by the extortion, sabotage, and violence that faced many people who didn't choose to follow the rules.

This girl's name was Spectra, a seventeen year old from another occidental nation, an aristocratic daughter who inherited the fortunes of a technology firm known as Evertann Limited, one of the most prosperous companies that developed and tested a wide array of electronics. Many of its worldwide interests have benefited civilians, scientists, and soldiers alike. The girl's life was run by her overindulgence on things that had no purpose and were just as expendable even after her fall from grace and supposed deception by the enemy. Her serviceable generosity was distributed to others who only adhered to her financial choices. She impressed the KRAD collective.

The family was only a scientist and a CEO, no brothers and sisters, who used engineering to survive. This company was sabotaged underneath a KRAD financial scandal and had most of its revolutionary top-of-the-line equipment torn away from its foundations. Even her family and care-taking butler Geist were captured by the enemy. She had never seen them ever again. Her discipline and faculty were challenged to run the remains of the fractured company. Sacrifices had to be made.

Many of the plans used to construct inventions with the intention of satisfying commercial interests now was utilized in munitions factories everywhere at the urgency of the corrupted state. Countless people are driven by this self-destructive impetus. Its massive profits are generated by death itself in all of its many corporate facets. As a result of this, she has been burdened by such grief even though she masquerades with such a haughty disposition in order to make herself feel better with the dire situation of her family. This accession was most unprecedented. The provisions of a rectified consolidation were securely watched by members of the state with little alarm.

She was pressed to escape as she soon as she read the government-offered contract signed by her parents who had left to take part in their work in black projects being tested in undisclosed locations. Upon failing to meet the demand to forcibly develop military projects herself, her mansion was raided by enemy personnel employed by one of the countless subsidiaries, arms of the ruthless conglomerate, an elite counter-intelligence agency known as Fata Morgana. This agency also secretly served as the thirteenth largest multinational corporation that our enemy had exchanged the most grave benefits with.

As soon as the agents tried to exchange pleasantries with the woman and her overly-defensive adviser, she knew something was wrong about the impingement.

Spectra and her loyal butler were forced to flee the scene and her ruined dwelling by means of a modified transport vehicle. There, the two faced off against a horde of private agents that were chasing after them with presenting no warning but force. They could not run from them. No one was there to help them.

They were seeking to kill her. She was the needy that had to be trampled on by the only competition typical of the victimized terrors.

She was supplying secret information of the enemy military developments in operative areas by means of subterfuge toward the people she never trusted.

Many of the actions spurred by the views of the deserters of the KRAD opposition forces relied on her skills to carry them out without being repressed by the state.

She was a mercenary who valued her life as much as every kill she made, linked back to the momentous exploits of the insurrectionists and the failed rebellions.

Life was ever fleeting as the storm of hailing bullets and streaking missiles soared over her head with every time that she materialized with suspicious intent.

Her vehicle was eventually destroyed and the agents surveyed over the fatal wreckage. The girl and her loyal butler helplessly gripped to the ground as the men solemnly passed over them. The two hastily passed through a graveyard in the hopes of not being tracked down by them. They were dead wrong. Immediately, the two were launched into disarray when they were blinded by the fog in the forest, wandering through the labyrinth, yet they stayed together.

Suddenly, the two crossed paths with the vengeful leader of its security division, the one who forced all his expendable grunts after them, without any support from his comrades. The leader forced the girl into a challenge that she had to accept with flashing her snooty demeanor. She was quickly beaten in the melee. Laying at the bottom of a hole and being carried away to an undisclosed location while being unconscious reminded her of death.

When she woke up, she was restrained and being experimented on inside a KRAD laboratory. She was being observed by the pitiless leader through a camera.

During this process, she was erased of nearly all her memories at the expense of being completely transformed. This girl discovered that she remained the same in her appearance, yet she had the ability to become transparent and invisible at will, as well as the skills of levitation and the ability to phase through objects. She thought she was dead.

At the same time, she was awed by her new talent that aroused much potential for the enemy. She was injected with a gene that earned her those capabilities.

Being genetically tampered with through testing yielded much excellence toward her potential customers. Eugenics were the least of their concerns.

Spectra was soon discovered by her butler who had gained the same abilities and they both devastated the laboratory from the inside. The soldiers were scared to death. After escaping, they were rescued by members of the united nations that ensconced them to learn about using their strange new abilities. The organization was never exposed for its severely cruel scientific experiments. Even after the hidden laboratory was nearly in ruins, its members still survived. The girl had never seen any of her kind, and ponders that there are more individuals whose powers are being exploited and now being employed to terminate her.

She remains somewhat friendly and outgoing with high spirits, but ever since the incident, she is very worried of her future, almost possessed.

She knows nothing.

As a result of this, she has been burdened by such grief even though she masquerades with such a haughty disposition in order to make herself feel better with the dire situation. Thankfully, some of her personal belongings that remained had not been absconded, her personal treasures in the form of her conceited beauty through her excessive adorning. I chance upon the idea that her immortal body leaves her stark naked. Her mischievous tricks are somewhat disturbing for her to be remotely satisfied. She enjoys her revelry as if it is a means of her to escape from the confines of a broken reality unable to be fixed.

The pretty one always finds a way to pleasure herself. She often seems so eager to get us to do her bidding, and is labeled as a "phantress" for this reason.

I am frightened by her feelings of liberation. She is well known within secretive echelons of the KRAD scientific field that are likely developing countermeasures as we speak.

Her responses are galvanized purely out of her personal wishes. With the recent snatching of her butler, she feels pestered to serve herself.

When trying to reason with such a wench, this one is very manipulative and just as conniving.

Spectra acts like a moody child, as this is typical of what the imperialists are, only spoiled brats.

Sometimes, to which some of us can agree, she is a total bitch, having modeled as a vengeful hellion. Her motivations are formulated through her powers.

At times, she even goes as far as to throw her caution to the wind and imagines herself as a harrowing and haunting ghost to the point that she adopts this rather phantasmic persona. She relies on stealth and secrecy as much as any girl is with her relationship with other men. Much of her past was just as hidden.

Her internal struggle is her insecure vagabondism. She seeks to exhume her disinterred glory from her solemn grave.

To show that she is somewhat connected to reality, somewhat alone, she loves to smile and laugh, rather haughtily along with covering her elated face by means of an expensive hand fan. She also has this personal preference for things with more purpose than mere disposability. One thing that rather amuses me is how she loves to take her anger out by slapping people. Her invigorating mirth guides her fate as a good-nurtured person who trusts us.

Yet at the same time, Spectra is valuable by her promiscuity, furtiveness, and clandestinity.

However, the one that is married isn't so much of a way to speak of her tempting exploits, so I need to explain of her at a later time when the manner is appropriate. Yet this is the time when there is a need to be important, as she has been singled out in our assessments, mainly because she is just a skeptic who is rather shy over the exacerbation of the KRAD conflicts. She was a child prodigy in her intelligence and the study and management of science and technology and mathematics typical of a specific oriental nation that values its mental gifts. She longs for her lover that was caught in the trouble that she caused herself. She was the daughter of intellectual parents who worked for the country's aerospace and defense industry. The pressurizing work that the family undertook was centered on an innovative government initiative of increasing a competitive stance between the greatest country in the world through scientific developments. She eventually managed to desert from her family and was seeking to escape to the greatest country in the world in order to live a better life. She never did.

The girl's name is Wenqian, formerly employed as a hacker against the stringent government that symbolized a new epoch of cyber-warfare. She was seen as a deceiving crook. Her defiant stance on censorship had given her national attention that proved to be especially significant among the majority.

An independent of leading a group of officials targeted by her country's government in illegal operations had forced her away from her homeland. The actions of manipulating the computer hardware of state-owned businesses and infrastructure were traced back to her through the government secret police. On the run from state law enforcement, she encountered the agents of the KRAD government that were trying to get people to support their cause, and she was quickly exploited as a member of their elite hacking groups. At the costly expense of her parents forever under government custody, she gravely admitted to help.

Much of the electronic countermeasures enabled them to retrieve data from classified military files from the united nations' defenses in order for them to develop a wide array of new weapons of war to conceive or counter certain strategies that furthered their own benefit. The girl herself along with other agents was sent in to accomplish these tasks purposefully. During this time, she had also learned to be a pilot of military aircraft. Widespread scandals involving unstable nations dealing with dangerous materials distracted the united nations long enough for the KRAD collective to maintain its firmly rough leverage.

At the same time, the enemy was conspiring to leak into major defense departments and corporations along with using extortion to obtain the money and resources they needed with little effort from the economies of the major powers. They even managed to influence many global crises with warranting the proliferation of these newly developed armies of disorder to grant the funding of their operations in many worldwide conflicts across different regions.

All of this was achieved through the views of a pragmatic Wenqian who predicted these events beforehand, having amassed much knowledge of certain currently worldwide issues. Eventually, she was found to be a pawn in this conspiracy when she was being undermined by her superiors when their clandestine efforts overseas managed to explode into anarchy.

The same stance on censorship proved insignificant for her to freely speak at all about it, and even then, forcing the masses away from the truth demanded the cruel higher ups to manage more brutally toward their subordinates in the cause for a revolution that ended up failing.

All the wars of the world ended up slowly destabilizing the balance of power of major players.

The disease of self-annihilation could not be contained or quarantined. The unstable world descended into a state of madness and was killed and reincarnated under the KRAD image. She had denounced censorship under her new way of life as much as her homeland.

Eventually, she was targeted to be eliminated by the enemy agents that tried to halt her escape from their domain, even relentlessly sabotaging her means of doing it electronically.

As the new promised land had degraded into a state of ruination, so had the minds of the individual in response to total conformity in the same vain of a dictatorship. The same thing happened. The girl was located and was found to be mentally debilitated from her encounter with elite members of the united nations police forces as much as the KRAD security forces.

Eventually, she was raised as a hacker against the new world order. She had also utilized her talents to become a genius inventor of the united nations scientific community. She has become a much larger target than what she already was, an individual shrouded in the mystery of collectivism and why it is hard to live.

I regard the efforts of Wenqian as a worthy ally with her skeptic persona and a symbol for the goals of freedom through her commitment to the new impressive modem of technology.

This is my story of how I came together with these strange men and women each with their own view of hope. I have mine, and they have theirs. Individualism is the catalyst that must forever be expounded.


	4. Chapter 3: The Enemy Upon Us

Many of us had not known of our sudden approach with agents of the united nations security forces that were clandestinely dispatched in the area. They probably had realized that they were being hunted too. Those very agents who were intending to free us from the claustrophobic position had forced us into confines, shackles, that we each were forced to bear. This treacherous agency was a part of the military branch, being backed by the united nations, yet it acted independent from its founders. Initially, we did not heed their warnings, and we were forced into a hell through people who we had to trust in such a position. We as HOPE were about to be called into action to serve the interests of the enigmatic DREAM that has been knowing of our divagations for most of our service. Being separated from the new world order as an act of insubordination, I as an unwelcome newcomer may be seen as a terrorist threat for relating with them.

The sudden intrusion of the corruption had merged with the forlorn viewings of such an abject area to address our feeling of despair where we were trying to deal with the situation. We had long vividly remembered of the day when the anarchist world was chasing after us. Many of us were outcasts, drawn into the depressing shadow by our own doing or being instigated by others, but ultimately, we were constricted inside the KRAD prison by them. We had tried to warn the people of their fate and the error of their ways. They didn't listen. I was embittered at their cold, expressionless faces that dejected my kind, before they ended up endangering and destroying themselves at the expense of the monstrous enemy to consume.

We were not going insane at the very moment of our betrayal by society. We were criminals, crooks, convicts, escaping from our pursuers, ignoring the alarms, unable to escape the numbers of the officers. We had little standard weaponry to even defend ourselves in a simple firefight.

Each of us epitomized our enemy as scum who showed no empathy toward us as scum.

The incursion by the agents of the allied organization that thankfully had come to our aid was presented with a feeling of hope when we had nearly degenerated into a horde of malevolent beasts that could not reason with anyone out of the regard for our discontent for ourselves.

Our loitering had ceased, our indolence had uplifted, and our weariness was reinvigorated.

We were not being punished for our felons, scrawled transgressions, as we had not committed any crimes at all.

Our sense of judgment was reinforced by personal revenge as much as any defiant proponent who has had oneself ruined and lost as payback. The payment had since long been overdue.

Our lives were ruined and lost, yet we seemed normal about our invigorating discussions. We had talked of our encounter with the monster and were worried of being found by the hunter.

As warriors of our own cause, dormant among the seething rage, we simply remained calm.

What radiated in our cool bodies was the heat of a dying star that was ready to explode.

Immediately, we had sucked everything inside it as a enormous hole, atom for atom.

These specialists were resplendent in their outfits of a depressing black and white hue.

We were entombed inside the cave for so long that the fear of the outside world was starving our sense of individuality, degrading our perceptions right down to a simple primordial instinct. Even if our interests were arbitrary, we were surviving like a pack of disorganized animals. The vantage point was the cave, and the tunnels were our means of reaching the location. The situation of the countless nations undergoing corruption were the very issue that managed to serve their own individualistic political ambitions, and we acted like their leaders.

We had eluded capture from the enemy organization as our interests were at stake. Our ascension to greatness in each of our members were, ironically, not for achieving hope at all. However, our overriding contingency plan was insisted upon the destruction of our opponents. We could only trust ourselves, as we were then close friends. Our capabilities in the trials were about to be put to the test of the fullest of our limits, to surpass them, in the real time.

Many of us in our normal lives were trying to deal with the bothersome circumstances of living the life of the past, without technology or anything to please ourselves electronically. We were severed from the spider's web, falling from the deadly grasp of our captors, yet we were not truly free when we have landed on our feet. We still had the rest of the enormous world to deal with, against the pestilences of modern man and its devious contraptions that allow them to imagine themselves as gods, creators and destroyers, beyond our wildest misconceptions. We have been living in the shadow of a doubt for so long that we struggle to face our excursion and entry into the outside world, so barren and sterile typical of any promised land upon the cultivation of its inception. However, as the garden grows, it is beaten time and time again by the forces of nature, and even on the brink of destruction, a new harvest is bound to blossom in an eternal joy to feed its masses. That idea was gone from the very start when the management started to proclaim that we shall live under the most transparent administration in history. The very being was forged in shattered glass, and now nothing can be recovered. We have received many cuts and bruises, yet the agony runs deep in our fragile consciences.

The remains of the pains have been constructed in enormous buildings and monuments, each with a reflective significance that has affected all of us in our struggle for freedom. We fail to see ourselves for who we are, and we invent concepts based on our own arbitrary views. As we try to recover what is lost, the effort yields little result, the ends do not justify the means, and the objectifications that we try to conspire are deciphered with grave perplexity.

In closing this rather long monologue, my ambitions are still sadly unknown, even to myself.

If the world is like a puzzle, the wonder and the gravity of its splendor is spread out evenly, and somehow, all the pieces will evenly fit together to form one of countless amazing things. Thus, the reason for I am being tested as a soldier lies in my bravery, not brains or brawn. For my own conception as to why I am doing what I am doing, trying to agree with agents of my former imperialist enemies, I was greatly disturbed at the growth of the KRAD Empire.

The very existential nature of the enemy is surrounded by a decadent anachronistic barrier that cannot be perforated even by geniuses, long guarded by secrecy as if they were some reawakened new world order, as if they had been some cult that had predicted the end of the world and when and how the events will play out. They might as well be playing cards with each other. They are prolonging and diminishing the destructive premonitions with every move made.

Some of those moves were beneficial or detrimental, yet there were no real consequences.

Fissures of dissent rumbled and tore open an enormous cleavage that divided many groups.

The charges are being made, the rewards are being given out, and no one throws the table.

It has likely been that way for perhaps many years, confined by tradition, law, and directive.

Governing the rest of the ruined world is by no means a simple game or trade off. Some world leaders were sympathizing for us in the fight for freedom before the great war broke out, before the new world order tarnished it with their corrosive, faithless lies of propaganda. We are all like pawns for the major players. Now, the only two remaining are us joined with what remains from the fractured united nations and the solidified closure of the KRAD collective.

In fact, we do not see this war of armageddon as a game at all. It is a long fight for survival. The cataclysm nearly made us dismiss believing in eternal justice.

We do not wish to fight any longer, for years we have suffered the blows that our young minds could not comprehend even into the horrors of our progenitors, should they be alive today. Now, our hope for survival lies in ourselves. The odds were indeed against us. We still strived for supremacy.

The prelude to our unfortunate greatness now begins.

It was a normal day inside our cave, day thirteen, the light inundating the mouth of the cave as if it were some enormous beast, briefly blinding us mortals as the beginning of its eternal cyclical stint. We were all observed as shadows in our midst, growing ever larger as we moved on our trek down and out of the cave's mouth, minding the rocks and cracks away from our tattered clothes and wearing feet. Formally, we had condemned ourselves from the heavens, slipping into an abysmal sorrow day by day, forcing ourselves into the agony, with the last of our food and water, leaving to hunt like animals on the rocky desert of the outside. What remained of the no-fly zones of the past were clouded in the smoke that filled the skies. All those bitter operations against our people by the imperialists were no better than what the new world order had planned for the chosen people and the disillusioned deviants of the past. All the kidnapping and violence seemed to push the former security forces to be unwilling to serve in such a hellhole. Some of them killed themselves. That was once a rumor to me.

The cold blood and sadistic murder was another story, as the dictators that were desperately trying to grapple the portions of the ruined territory, brutalize the populations, and exploit the horrific devastation, until their tenure of mercilessness had solemnly come to an end. I was one of the people who had overthrown the dictator, together with the millions of my own people, promising an end to the corrupt reign of tyranny. Sadly, the attempts to restore the fragile peace of centuries past have still not been solved in the barren middle ground. All those massive resources had paved way for the KRAD Union to storm the reformative power of its influence over the ruined towns and formerly holy cities. The coalition forces were merely bleak obstructions in the way of progress, and they were quickly vanquished like insects. It was a terrible scourge that destroyed the foundations of reason and the laws of nature against a brutal, unreasoning force.

Yet our supposed enemy had not authorized the carnage of thousands of innocent lives.

The task was carried out through elitist members of the private military contractors, pawns just like us as hired specialists to enforce the security and secrecy of their clandestine operations.

We never wanted to move into the devastated cities, for we did not to be reminded of pain, or stalked by ferocious predators masked under the helm of the blazing, basting, swirling sun.

The entire desert was a solarium, and we did not dare to venture out into the blistering land. Each of us did not want to die with all the dejected spirits, corpses degrading in the sands of time.

Fortunately, we had to face the conditions when we out went hunting and scavenging. The thought of divine protection was never even conceived to begin with.

The desolate and lonesome area had little value to us, yet we never ventured into the cities.

Most importantly, we did never go alone. At least a pair of us would switch out daily to search for any auspicious arbitrary activity of anything adamantly associated with the KRAD Union. So far, we have faced no machines, monsters, or men in the mouth of our cavernous chasm.

The crucible of a newfound movement would be contained inside the detritus of the old order. Our testament to this grave undertaking proved to be based on social acceptance and possession, for each of us still had to stick together or be abandoned by the rest of us.

We did not want to be assimilated into the new world order. Everything that had a conscience refused or else they were assimilated or annihilated. If you can't beat them, join them, as to me, that line was easy to understand, yet was rather difficult to place under the KRAD state.

There was little to no need to join them, as everyone who joined them were expendable. Many of us have come to a point that it was impossible to replace man for designated tasks, in spite of the qualifications or conditions or even the casualties. They were just like drones.

Yet at the same time, we all had to face our fears. The united nations were our trusted friends.

Inside the cave, I had immediately woken up. My black hair flashed in the glow of the morn. I quickly scratched my hair rather erratically to find that I have collected much dust and lint, for I had not showered in ages. My body was growing decadent faster than what my superiors had denounced about the imperialist westerners of the past, yet this issue did not bother me. What still disturbs me is how they have brutally executed our enemies without a sense of remorse.

I had still not managed to change my garments in several days, and the smell reeks like the residue of a chemical weapon that just exploded from far away, yet thankfully, we are not dead.

I slowly got up, holding my hand against a jagged wall of the cave, minding any rough edges.

I turned to breath a sigh of relief from the short rest of only three hours, for I was stationed on night watch duty at the mouth of the cave, which reminded me of the thrill of the hunt overnight when I searched animals for game with my father and younger siblings. My tattered clothes of a fetid black jumpsuit was getting a little hot for me, and I quickly stripped it off. Fortunately, I had a muscle shirt underneath me to reveal my muscular build. It has shown some training, yet not that much compared to the physically pulsating powerhouse of George.

I did not intend to impress the virgins, yet I secretly had some platonic obsession for the three.

The jumpsuit was tossed over my equipment and various weapons as much as George. I actually admired the collection of the guns and grenades that he salvaged from the victims.

Under my head, I bore a chained pendant, an inscribed talisman of silver that my mother gave to me before she died. I will always remember her when I possess this trinket. This special gift was hidden from my fellow subverted employees in a secret location before I defected to join the united nations.

The electronic helmet that I still wore was used to protect the expendable grunts of the new world order, clad in its black and red marking, specially modified, not customized by Wenqian to best suit me. George respects the oriental girl for her skills and is always willing to engage in a friendly competition with her.

I still held on to the assault rifle, designated marksman rifle and laser sight pistol, full ammo.

However, I was somewhat bored by Mark's discussion of the topic of the specifications, for he had also been an independent weapons specialist and researcher, learning and assessing the effectiveness of each and every tool we gathered and put to use in forging our future. However, my conspiratorial friend happens to be easily distracted from his goal when any of the three females decide to intervene in his work. Mark's indecent addiction to the temptation is aggravating.

My utility belt attachment still held its maximum of six fragmentation grenades. I feel thankful that I was not issued to join the suicide squad that consisted of its most committed fanatics, as this is one of the many reasons of why I should not be seen as a terrorist to the others. I inadvertently scream my former war cry at my rivals in different situations, even if it once was a phrase used to faithfully unite our people. It is hard for me to ignore this overzealous impulse.

Aria, for me, is too beautiful to lose, yet she puts herself in danger more frequently than the others of men with all those different bombs of various sizes and shapes. Many of her exploits to try to best herself in front of the five of us make her a highly valued target. Wenqian, though being somewhat quiet in her research of technology that is beyond our comprehension, has to test the new materials all by herself, even on the field of battle, to note of their efficiency. She just loves to take things from the enemy and modify or even reverse engineer them herself, regardless of the consequences. She is able to adeptly operate them as if she were an expert as a genius who surprisingly is fascinated by such weapons. She pretty much forgets about her past reflections of the grave threat of these weapons and how they should be destroyed. Both girls are targets of predation, especially in view of Mark when he is under another perverted trance.

Wenqian has sharp reflexes, with her mind being able to link with her body almost instantly, and she just loves to get into any debate and easily win it through her loquaciousness. Whenever I even glance and am easily dumbfounded by the algorithms that she prescribes on the cavern walls, I think that it is something short of poetry, yet it applies only to her work that she never tells us unless if it is of great importance in the acumen of her personal study.

Many of her pictures predict such love as much as the diagrams of her inventions.

Spectra shows no fear in the weapons, mostly because of the fact that she is a ghost, yet she does show some sentimental interest in them. However, she is mostly worried when our enemies manage to bring any weapons with them, as the very encounter with any ominous KRAD presence makes her mind shudder with fear. She has little comprehension of how the things work, for she possesses no great mind, and she does not care about the effects of the weapons on her incorporeal form. The girl is oddly delighted in being dead. Her intangibility, though limited, brings the marginal consequence of using weapons to cause harm in its inactive state. A theory of trying to make weapons through manipulation of the elements or directed energy may bring this oddity to life. Surprisingly, everything that we possess ends up phasing through her. When we try to throw punches and kicks at her, they pass through her or she quickly dodges them.

Her snooty demeanor has constructed a mental obstruct that could be nearing destruction. Surprisingly, the tricks that she contrives are a grave detriment.

She, like the oriental girl, has this passion to strategically use the weapons herself in causing them to disappear along with her and reappear to hit her enemies where they least expect it. Even if the guns are made of metal, and they can phase through objects as well, they can reappear and strike just as hard. For an unknown reason, she does not usually carry the guns. Her preferred weapon is the fan that she never lets us take from her, yet it proves to be very dangerous.

The phantress, regardless, does not want to incite another conflict, so she simply stayed low. I do not know if Mark is able to make his move on her yet.

In her time, she mostly stayed hidden, floating through the caverns, causing little noise. She is prone to emitting her eerie shrieks from time to time.

Now, I had gathered up my same things to wear them again and prepare myself for a potential run with a enemy file or perhaps more. My training was still limited to an extent.

In spite of the circumstances, I had to remember all of it and apply my preternatural instinct.

I encountered my friend George as he stumbled toward me with a tough-guy stance, much to my chagrin as he spun his pistols and made a series of poses while awkwardly hollering.

"Hello" I said, readily aware that I would face a barrage of outlandish southern dialect. I continued to speak to him in a lucid manner.

"Howdy, partner." George gave a smile with bearing his teeth and pushing up his sunglasses.

"How's the survey coming along?"

"It's mighty fine. None of them KRAD folks have come yet. I'm lucky we're safe in here."

"I'm surprised that the enemy hasn't sent in anything after us. Where's the help?"

"Well, uh, mister Lever. " I did not explode at the arrogant mispronunciation of my name.

"Leber."

"Oh, right. Sorry. You see, there may be no help in these here parts."

I try to gasp in horror as the cowboy delivered the horrible news, but easily restrained it.

"Who's coming with us for the scouting party today? I'll be happy to oblige."

"I appreciate the effort, partner, we're good right now. I'll see you later." George walked down the path toward the deep end of the cave. I stepped out a few feet to notice a mirage appearing over the desert sands. I could barely make it out as a group of sinister shadows descended upon us, looking suspiciously like black helicopters. They then materialized with their mechanical exteriors, each one bearing the logo of the KRAD Empire and the eponymous enlightened eye impressed on different portions. I slipped back inside to warn my friends of their arrival, wincing from the machines moments until I could hear their deafening hover, before they could target me or the others with their guns, missiles, and bombs. I instantly knew that we each were helpless against them.


	5. Chapter 4: KRAD Premonitions

At the beginning of the thirteenth day, I became more acquainted with my new friends of HOPE through my conversations with them, even if they were rather awkward. For every time that I was addressed, each of them glorified themselves in some boisterous degree. It largely depended on one's strength in money, power, and intellect, yet they could not predict fate.

It was then that I decided to address the rest of the group, right before the ominous shadows materialized overhead, yet they were too distracted, thus bound to face the danger head on.

I had been the only one that saw the black helicopters as they hovered toward us, waiting for us.

Aside from the talk of their personal accounts of the encounters that they had with the enemy and potential motivations for current events being linked to the enemy, there was absolutely nothing to question about what would happen next. We were all being confined to executing a single task, one that would possibly extend for the rest of our lives. Even if we could learn everything about the enemy and track their every move, I still question with uncertainty if there was any real meaning behind it. We might as well have lost our sanity and our very lives then and there. In the case of the phantress, it might as well be less than a minor impertinence, even if she was dead, yet the lasting memories would still live on inside the ghostly shell. Every night before we went to sleep, we gathered around to tell stories around the fire about the encounters in addition to reveal our own personal aspirations to the entire group. The conspiracy theorist claimed that whoever HOPE worked for was being manipulated by the enemy, and they were heading in the wrong direction the entire time. He spoke about the leader wearing a mask. Our efforts would be directed to destroy the opposition that our enemies wanted to rid out, and we might get blamed, censured, and even executed for our crimes against our purpose. We were pawns in the grand scheme of things, acting on order.

Each of us might as well go insane and start attacking our former masters out of pure rage.

Any accounts of witnessing such a tragedy seemed to be rather inconclusive to all of us.

I was disturbed by the thought of being a puppet, alive and dead, unable to grasp rationality.

To a degree, I imagined the idea as credible, yet I never verbally admitted it to the rest of us.

However, I, along with the rest of the group, immediately dismissed that deceitful dissertation.

Even after my partners were resting, I had briefly risen to sometime watch the phantress float about, feeling surprisingly normal, as she didn't need to sleep, which oddly surprised me. I never wanted to touch her in that state of alacrity, for it would even seem that anything passing through her would end up arousing a majority of her invisible nerves and possibly cause her to screech and assault me with a series of relentless verbal and physical beatings. She would then likely snigger at me.

In short, the bitch would get very mad at me. I felt satisfied and saddened with every vigorous smack. I could never hit her.

I did not want to end up like Mark, who would suffer the same fate as me for trying to disturb her. He was smacked about by her left hand, and his face felt cold and red seconds after.

The conspiracy theorist was even laughed at by the spirit as she continued to harass him.

It was a bitter form of embarrassment coming from the most aggressive member of the group.

She may have regarded Mark's pervasive intrusion just as she would a minor enemy soldier.

The phantress showed no regret in her ghastly stare when disappearing and looking back at and then away from the perpetrator as he retreated from his intangible prey that retaliated.

If she even tried to emit a sense of the word sorry, it would be with no change in heart. She learned her aggressive tactics from her servant under her rich lifestyle, demonstrated from attacking her exes in vain. Aria and Wenqian screamed and threatened but never fought Mark back.

Whenever I felt confident in culling a single firearm from George's arsenal of guns to use in target practice, I feel rather disturbed by how he immediately forces me to lose it. He hoarded all the guns for himself and personally kept the most effective ones and left the weakest, pistols and submachine guns, for me to occasionally miss my targets, but I would still remember my training with my intellect and patience. Surprisingly, he was just as effective with the weakest guns as much as the strongest guns, which somewhat baffled my perception of combat. I had not shot or even held a firearm for days prior to my entry in the cave. Whenever I would win the competition by shooting the most targets, I would get assaulted by George's belaboring statements proving how strong he was compared to me. From there, we would race and face each other in close quarters combat. I lost nearly every wrestling match when he thrusted his heaving arms down on me in front of the dirty ground, almost kissing it.

Even if our former conservative society was epitomized by a brutally uncontested violence, I had never partaken in such a practice. The violence from the wars distracted us from finding any professional sport that delineated itself from murdering men in cold blood by crushing them into submission and not killing them purposefully. I would occasionally face Mark, and his tactic involved trying to slip behind me and pin me down by the legs to force me down. Every time I confronted Mark in wrestling, I won nearly every match, because I could strike Mark down onto the mat faster than he could react and overwhelm him by stressing my muscles against his straining arms. The women would occasionally squall among themselves behind the mat and gossip over arguing who would win in the exhibition, screaming vigorously, yet thankfully never intervened. George and Mark and I were all just experiencing the thrill of the fight. Our nature was driven by coming together in a friendly competition, yet we were not feeling or directly inflicting any scars of battle that would likely form in animals.

In addition, George also showed me how to play in the sport of boxing and develop some skill, and he was as much of a training partner as much as a battle-hardy opponent in combat.

I commend George and Leber for their skills in training me, yet unfortunately, George's especially apparent issue of a self-superiority bias had greatly hampered his judgment.

George was especially stuck up in front of me with the brash, sullen demeanor typical of the western cowboy that always ends up getting himself in trouble and putting his life at risk to earn some material reward, whether money, power, or women, and maintain his figure of authority.

However, his fantastical time had long since passed, and it proved to especially burden him.

Whenever I encountered Mark, I felt very disturbed by his obsession for conspiracy theories and the three girls, who he facilitates a spoiled belief of trying to liberate them in adolescence.

One day, I managed to find him kneeling against the wall wearing a fragile hat made of tinfoil.

He was speaking to me rather oddly as I approached him, yet he seemed rather calm.

"Mark, what are you doing?" I questioned as I almost stopped resisting the urge to shudder.

"It's a KRAD conspiracy, man. They're the ones who started the war. They furnished the sterile machines of corporate death. Soldiers are cutting us down. We need to challenge the power structure. We must exercise our revolutionary right We all want to change the world, man. You can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution! Hell no! Stand up for your right!" As soon as he raised his fist and fidgeted with an odd smile, I was repulsed to slowly walk away.

Almost immediately after my encounter with Mark, he would turn his head and smile back at me with some strange expression that I never wished to reciprocate. Mark was very weird to me, as I never understood him. He was trying to connect the actions of our enemy that were performed in the same view of a manipulative, merciless god that wishes to destroy us all out of redemption for our ruined world. None of us had a very holistic approach to the theory of us being controlled by a benevolent celestial dictatorship that dissolutes our well being and security, overseen by a higher power that commands us to be well when we are created sick. We never listened to the prophet's vapid ways that delineate from the idea that any god is a saving figure toward its objects. We did not even have a sense of god in our lives ever since we were brought together by fate. To us, Mark's parallels were easily doubtable at best.

Regardless, we still turned away from his blasphemous statements. My former faith mentality was defiled in front of me, and Mark had the balls to denounce my views with a straight face.

Whenever he tried to fondle with and gloss over my talisman, he would disparage it as a devil's tool. His wicked grimace would show itself again, his mind concocting schemes like a greedy man. As soon as I witnessed that transformation, I was disturbed at the horror of his shadowy face. I noticed an awkwardly strange gait in his stride, his feet pacing on the ground and leaping across the walls with an animalistic locution. He hastened his velocity toward his unkempt dwelling to his hidden precious collection of weapons that he gave names. He would sometime lash out with making moves with his weapons and acting like a show-off. If I even came close to his possessions, he would rudely growl and even hiss at me. The man would utilize abandoned mining equipment from the cave, which actually was a former mine fully depleted of its resources before our enemy used it to crudely bury the disillusioned. Mark tunneled between the sections of the cave during the night with a small light source and no protection. He personally told me, the first time when I came across his personal space, that he wanted to create a tunnel out of there to find a way to escape through a different way. Our house was divided against itself, and it proved to be very difficult for Mark to connect them. He even showed me a rather detailed map that he drew of the cave, accepting my praise. Mark had also managed to bore tunnels through the girls' resting areas during the night. Whenever he felt a weaker ground, he peeped through to notice them as they undressed. After being satisfied, he withdrew from the sanctuary into the isolation of the labyrinth, where everything around him never mattered to him with an absent sense of direction and individuality. The walls were closing in on him, yet the fear already consumed him. Whenever the noise had startled the girls', he would scamper off like a deranged beast without even uttering a word.

There was no way for him to conceal his motivations that were driven by the supernatural.

We never did anything to revoke his privilege to get him to stop those actions. The girls convinced us that they were robbed, growing suspicious that a creature appeared in the middle of the night to go inside the cave looking for prey. George really made us believe it.

Aria was the only one who asserted the supposition as true, while Wenqian immediately vowed that she would search for truth among the confusion of the superstitions through scientific evidence. She just wanted to expose any trace of the monster's existence to the rest of us. Mark, being the bigoted conspiracy theorist as he is, surprisingly remained rather reticent on the matter, for he knew of what he did. Spectra was blamed for the encounter, yet she elaborated that she couldn't have made the holes if she didn't have the tools to do so.

The ghost would contemptuously lash out at her rivals without any sense of compassion, almost as if she were a lady who squandered all her time on trying to elude herself. Sometimes, it would be rather useful for her to avoid any conversation over confusing subjects. Whenever I tried to speak with her personally, I managed to gradually uncover some meaning underneath her ectoplasmic shell, beyond her obsession for her own aberrant body.

I always suspected her presence by a pungently cold smell that resonated inside the cave.

Communicating with an ethereal simulacrum seemed to be rather strange, yet it had some benefits. I learned of Spectra's rich lifestyle, rather intrigued by how formal everything was.

From what she remembered from the love of luxury, she confided a thought of moderation, yet it was easily disturbed when some of her mischievous motivations had gone too far.

Her eccentric comforts in life had left her very sheltered from the outside world, as if she were becoming confined inside the old family mansion she once lived in that the cave acts like.

She showed me some of her feats that no mortal could perform, which also made me feel proud in the face of her scowls and cringes whenever she leaves her appalling mouth ajar to emit a haughty laugh. Spectra has fabricated a rather unpredictable vision with her unctuous visibility through our perception of her strange behavior. She changes from a respectable lady into a disreputable bitch whenever we hear that ghostly wail shatter our ears with displeasure. It occasionally shifts into a high pitched voice whenever she shows little emotion toward us.

Whenever she scares us, she even goes as far as to distort her shape into that of a monster.

The glaring eyes, the pointed fangs, and the repulsive tongue especially develop these traits.

Nevertheless, the phantress is very snooty toward us mortals, the other five of us in particular, for a reason that we have yet to discover. We have theorized that she believes in wanting to continue her legacy in death by trying to prove her superiority in front of all of us and whatever we may encounter in the future. This has also raised the awareness of Mark in the process, especially in a perverted sort of way when he prefers any women who have a fair status.

When trying to suggest some perverted gesture, Spectra immediately attacks Mark in rage.

I have to almost try to run whenever she floats close to me or Mark, as if she were contriving some manner of sadistically torturing me and my conspiratorial ally with her conniving tricks.

Her personage with the elevated status that she presented prior to her death excites me.

My relationship with the phantress seems to be somewhat dysfunctional, for it is hard to define what constitutes any sense of normalcy when we unfortunately live on opposite ends of the earth. It is hard to tell whether an immortal being and a man could share any feeling of intimacy.

Whenever I am around Aria, I feel very confused when around a woman who has difficulty trying to be properly raised in a new way of life beyond that of her homeland and a western behaviorism that has greatly extrapolated her vacuous romanticism and consumerism as much as George is. She is easily distracted by simple things and questions about her identity that only apply with simple answers about her general appearance as a woman. Whenever I am around her, she asks me and my friends about trying on clothes and other accessories.

She would expend a group of extravagant dresses and lavish makeup that Spectra may have loved to wear when she was alive and Wenqian would likely offer no comment on such things.

"Hey! Does this dress make me look fat? How about this skimpy outfit? This wrap dress?" Silencing her gossiping mouth was as hard as appeasing a dictator. She was so obsessed with her beauty that it made her more of a moody materialism-driven princess than a friend. I am around a flirtatious girl who is extremely spoiled. Thankfully, without any technological reception, Aria can't call her boyfriend to help us, to which she groans every time she fails.

It is difficult for her to cooperate when she cares about her popularity and social standing.

She has been shut out from the online world, not able to receive the updates she hopes for.

Aside for her quibbling over simple matters, she is distracted by her competitive skills of handling with a variety of explosives. She isn't that much of a weapons specialist at all.

All she does is decide which ones to use and how hard to throw them at the enemy.

She has developed quite an arm for doing this, and she rarely misses her target without the bomb blowing up. In spite of being very girly, she loves action movies and all the explosions.

With her love for consumerism, she is always attracted to miscellaneous product placement.

Sometimes, when she launches a grenade so hard like a ball that it explodes on contact with an object. She is a bit of a tactician, but not at the league of Mark when operating these mad weapons, yet she is prone to being reprimanded by the others for losing her common sense.

It is hard to tell if she is satisfied when around George, who commends her, and Mark, who objectifies her. Mark is prone to innuendo puns about her volatility in regard to her putting out.

George is nice to the explosive expert, congratulating her for her skills in target practice by blasting pieces from buildings and vehicles to build a small barricade close to the entrance.

Aria is fairly good at her aim and can run quickly. It likely makes her worthy of being in a sport.

She tries to impress herself by making scandalous poses around us before and after blasting.

My relationship with Aria seems somewhat dismal in comparison with that of the other girls.

She tries too hard for me and ends up scaring me sometime when she gets close to me.

I clearly do not want her through the cold face that I show in front of her. She does stop this little issue, and from there we can amend the broken bonds of our dysfunctional relationship.

She is greatly disturbed by being hunted by our enemy, whatever the form, as this is likely why she wants to be protected instead of being thrown out in the front lines that she was horribly accustomed to in her prior service. She prefers her liking of range and true firepower.

I may be the only way for allowing Aria to reach her explosive stardom for our dim dystopia.

She is likely the most proudly emotional member of the united nations' elitist entourage.

Easily excited, we try to reach out to her potential in order for our goal to be realized.

The hope is brought by the fire and smoke of war, and for Aria, looks are quote deceiving.

Aria is happy to bring the rain of destruction toward our adversaries, and is always hesitant when necessary like an obedient pleasure girl. Much of her life was gone, but we promise to create a new future for her and her kind when our war against corruption is allegedly won.

There seems to be little hope for us when we are running out of food in the days before the thirteenth. George ends up hoarding the food as much as the weapons, yet it was easy for us to share our food with him. I am sitting around a pack of gruesome barbarians, pulling at the meat like ravenous animals. Wenqian is separating the food with meticulous precision in order to avoid choking herself, while Aria is gorging on her food by stuffing her mouth with much of the fat. I deduce that she has starved for most of the day and wants everything for herself.

When Mark eats, he pretty much does the same thing, except he is a vegetarian, and is still forced to consume meat since it is only thing that we can find out in this fruitless wasteland.

Spectra never grows hungry, yet she still consumes the opaque food that slowly degrades.

I am disturbed by such odd behaviors of sustention that my comrades exhibit on a daily basis.

Aria is still fearful of being stalked by a desert predator in spite of her expertise. She is emotionally frail over dealing with the situation. I feel somewhat bothered by how this abrupt change under the western way of life has pacified her for the difficult future ahead. It is almost as if she was thrown into one conflict after another, a war in herself and the outside world. Spectra is greatly disturbed over losing her friends, but covers it by being snooty. Wenqian is also anxious when not close to any form of technological communication, and it is difficult for her to tell me if whether or not she has found the results in a way that can be understood. Learning all this technological mumbo-jumbo seems to be much of a debacle to own in such a wasteland, where all the problems can be immediately solved through the means of science.

However, there is this penury of spirit that she frequently experiences within herself. She has debilitated her sense of existence through automotive information in various fields, and her loquacious language has limited my chances to understand her. Her anxiety erupts from being afraid and being watched by something that is far superior to her. Without any means of applied science, she is hopeless, for our enemy cannot be fought with sticks and stones.

Nature helps and harms her sense of inner peace to an extent, as the beauty of the world does so much to truly bring reconciliation to one's soul. Being disconnected from the outside world, has rendered Wenqian as prey to the scenery, the essence consuming her from within.

My affectionate relationship with Wenqian is hard for me. It is hard to redirect her awkward feelings. We all feel that her potential lies in her intellect and ability to deal with a problem without being involved unless if it dealt with something of her limited expertise of certain fields that the others and I do not understand anything about what the study and knowledge is.

Everything seems hopeless when we realize that we can't stay in our isolated position forever. Morale was extremely low on the morning of the thirteenth day in the deepest part of the cave.

George told us that there was no hope for us to live in the wasteland, awaiting cannibalism and a descent into madness, which may leave the phantress as the only existing entity.

He had also presented us with a course of action that we had to escape from the cave.

Inside my mind, the horrible images of war with their solemn rhythms made me speechless.

Attempts to boost morale have easily lost by one member disagreeing or not caring.  
We are growing distrustful of each other with calling foul names. Mark announces to the rest of the group a premonition that we have all been secretly surveyed by machinations of the KRAD Union for our potential weaknesses and are going to be easily taken advantage of. Forceful threats are eventually exchanged that Aria tries to ameliorate out of good will. Wenqian tries to side with Mark, declaring that we must approach this problem with caution.

Violence nearly ensues when our attacks narrowly manage to hit each other. Mark continues to defy George, as he believes we are risking our lives out in the wasteland without any help. He reinforces this notion with his theories of how the enemy has been monitoring and enforcing its security in its periphery that comprises the entire middle east. Aria is shocked to reason with us while Wenqian is too wordy to be understood, and is shut out from any conversation altogether. Spectra ignores us displeasured mortals, presenting her snooty demeanor toward us. I sided with George instead of Mark, whose attributes and temperament may have been the reason that I have difficulty reasoning with any conspiracy theorist at all.

Mark immediately conceded toward George out of arrogance when he had the mettle to tell that he was the one who caused the ruckus. He also had built a secret exit for us to escape.

He aroused a sense of hope in each of us, not being strange as he usually is toward us.

My sense of affinity was immediately put in the back of my head for the duration of the day. I actually had managed to take a short nap from staying up a little late last night before I went to speak to George about the hopelessness of the situation and if the scouting goes well. Any disruption would immediately force us to retreat away in fear, and today was finally the day.

Even if we had some training and sense of precaution along with the proper supplies, some of us wanted to go out like a maverick with our own independent mindset. We were still obligated to kill the perpetrators, but we did not want to bring more attention to ourselves.

For this reason, we have kept our area largely secretive with no clear recognizing that it belonged to us on the outside. All of our belongings and special markings and carvings were found inside the bleak cave, and everything seemed to be perfectly normal and too quiet.

After conversing with George and he moved away from me, I looked up to see the shadows.

I initially thought it was help, and underneath the contours were the KRAD incarnations. Three black helicopters were hovering above us, with their profiles made clear by the logos. It appeared that they were stealth versions, yet I could not tell how much firepower was concealed under the composite panels. I only faintly heard the helicopters as they were closing in on the cave, making me imagine that the machines were specially outfitted with a quiet rotor system.

Immediately at the sight of them, I went to find my friends in the same area I found them in.

My comrades were very disturbed at the sight of the looming threat, the monster at our door.

They, however, they distracted themselves from me, right before I convinced them to listen.

I rushed down back into the pit as fast as I could, not trying to scream and allow my voice to reverberate around the walls in a harrowing echo. Unfortunately, it had to happen for me.

"Hey guys! Look outside! We've got company!"

"What is it?" questioned George as he rested on the ground of the cave. I was quickly panting.

"It's them! Helicopters! Three of them! Come see!" I tried to address the gravity succinctly.

"My god! How did they find us here?" I could not even dare to fathom about that question.

Meanwhile, Mark was panicking while he addressed his prophecies over the KRAD intrusion.

He kept speaking of nonsense until he clung to an unsuspecting female, shuddering in fear.

"Black helicopters! Hovering! The demon was an idea! The demon is awake! They're coming for our asses, man! Oh shit! We're fucked! They're going to take us to a secret base and lock us up! They're monsters, I tell you! The government is coming! Help me! Watch the skies!"

Aria immediately threw herself into a frenzy when an iota of a doubt slipped past her mind.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! I'm getting out of here!" After screaming her lungs out, she was calmed down by George who then whispered to her of his plan that used her as team scout.

She initially declined the offer, but eventually admitted to it when she started to get up.

Spectra immediately decided to show off in front of the men with her haughty laugh.

"I doubt you mortals will stand a ghost of a chance! Not with me around! Ha ha ha!"

She wanted to get the agents in a single spot and find a way to scare them away. She immediately vanished by passing through the walls. I did not know where Spectra went.

There was also the risk of attacking the enemy helicopters or the agents, so we had immediately devised a countermeasure to find the exit as quickly as possible and may have to attack them with brute force by means of our weapons and still risking death by KRAD agents.

Mark immediately belied the notion that we were outmatched already, so he served the purpose to guard the rest of us by reporting of any movement from the enemy agents.

Wenqian quickly found herself dismayed by the possibility of being encountered by them, so she tried to explain the problem with her verbosity. "How dare these unruly ignoramuses try to intrude in the periphery of our natural domain! Such a tragedy will be a minor impertinence, a meagre trifle! We will show those bastardly barbarians! They have mislead their arrogance right in front of our burdened complexity and await defeat at our doorstep! Their ambitions have run them toward their graves! They must all be content with death then! I can assure you that I am ready to be tasked with this endeavor! As you westerners say, let's kick some ass, shall we? My keen observations of your variance all have belied the notion of our success!"

She immediately shifted her personality to something that seemed more comfortable with us.

Wenqian was immediately told to find the exit as quickly as possible, for she has analyzed the cave many times over down to the traces of the rock formations and other pieces of scenery.

Immediately, we all met around the mouth of the cave to see the shadows of the helicopters.

All of us froze in fear at the sight of such machinery and noticed that they had just landed.

It was from there that everything started to deteriorate, to fall apart, to degenerate, at once.

Suddenly, we saw that a gathering of lethal agents in military gear were emerging from the vehicles. The agents donned a black helmet and combat harness more menacing than mine and were joined with a variety of KRAD-produced guns. Their silhouette with their growing shadow made them more like easily obscured angles as they materialized with suspicious intent.

They did not utter a word at all, and only responded with hand movements. Our hearts raced.

Slowly, the silent soldiers lurched toward the mouth of the cave and loaded their weapons.

The people did not seem like men at all to the last of us. We responded on a single thought. All of the members get into their positions to face the force of the infiltrating enemy. Several of them start to panic when the lights from troopers start to fill the cave. In Mark's position, he is just about to blow his cover by spouting his prophecies. I realized that he's screwed when having to face the numbers. I did not have the skill to hold my own in a firefight in the cave.

George reminds the group to not leave his sight as he moves back to get his guns.

Aria's position as forward scout nearly hesitates against the troops inside the cave. We decided to draw further back inside the deepest part of the cave with a weapons cache. The entropy of our mental psyches suddenly forces us to break away from each other for reasons unknown George realizes that some members have gone AWOL and all our guns are missing. George is immediately angry when realizing that the guns were taken away by an unknown presence. Wenqian suspects a shortcut outside the cave, only to find a whole echelon of military vehicles waiting. She was almost ready to have a heart attack and rushed back inside. Aria quickly flees in front of the advancing troops and is being followed by them. It was too late for her, for I could only hear her scream. Mark, worried about the complications of engaging the enemy, hesitates to fire at the agents.

I immediately scampered around different sections of the cave in anticipation. Spectra avoided the men by phasing through the walls, intending to scare them off. The soldiers were silently capturing us one by one by quickly grabbing us, no word or bullet exchanged. Some of the girls start to scream wildly upon being grabbed, forcing the rest of HOPE to act. Immediately, the others start to race toward the mouth of the cave but are caught off guard by the tight security, and try to run toward the landed black helicopters outside. George tries to attack one of the soldiers by wrestling him to the ground but is caught and knocked out. Mark immediately surrenders by dropping his weapon with sarcasm on his face. Wenqian verbally assaults her captor's intelligence, yet the soldier didn't respond at all. Spectra was immediately surrounded, unable to scare them, and was disabled by a strange ectoplasmic gun. I was confronted by the men, trying to reason with my eventual captors, but I failed. I was blinded by a light in the midst of anarchy, and everything I knew about my future was about to change from there. A DREAM was present in our midst, bounded by fate.


	6. Chapter 5: Our Gains and Losses

I have not known of how long we have been knocked out unconscious by these strange men who clearly dressed as KRAD agents. They wore the same outfits and possessed correlative weapons. Even when trying to fathom how vulnerable we were in the tribulation of the outside world, we were isolated from our outward empirical perceptions just as much. The callous, unsympathetic void of nothingness blinded our eyes as we could only foster a DREAM in our heads, bound by fate. Our casuistry was torn from us in an instant, and we were left as sad shells of our former selves during the lasting time of our disconnection. We could not avert our minds from what we would see as soon as we opened our eyes under the spell of a languid fatigue. We could insinuate how we were brought here to this strange place, we could postulate about what happened to us, yet we felt no pain internally or emotionally. It seemed that the helicopters were bringing to mind of the angel of death as it approaches without admonition, making it unable to warn of the passing omen for whoever the phantom is set to approach and execute. The real monster that haunted our thoughts was represented as the whole ambiguity of the situation, how we were never informed about why the other members of HOPE had been led astray into a trap. The inveterate qualities that this monster possesses lies in the fact that it is silent and it seems to be watching us everywhere we venture beyond our comforts, observing our behavior from time to time. After braving the tempest of fear, we are now dealing with the aftermath of the widespread ruination. The forlorn abjectness of the environment is cold, vast, and unsympathetic in an institutional environment that cannot be understood. We stagger and fall on the fissures of industry that destroys the foundation of nature, the world that lives with us being disconcerted with the harmony disrupted by its heartless guttural voice. It is almost entirely mechanical in its operations that its contractors believe to be intrinsically beneficial to the point that it has its control over them. By failing to understand it, we live off of it slavishly, depreciated of our health and wealth, being drained of our very essence to understand us.

It acts almost as an omniscient higher power. It is no god.

This very being vies to destroy everything we know and love without comprehension.

It is controlled and managed by its creators and is the reason for why everything has become so lifeless and depressing. It shows no face as the agents have shown to us. The thing might as well be slowly dissipating our sensibilities when we are not realizing that we are in a matrix.

When we pass through the halls with our echoes reverberating around them like the cave, we have come to the conclusion that it is barren. The thought of life existing here seems illusory.

There was no sentiment as to address our newly discovered location with any vigor at all.

The foreboding presence of being in such a place debilitates our sense when everything is so black and gray with little lighting at all, as if most of the lighting has suffered a power outage.

We do not know anything about what this place is. There is nothing that connects it with our conflated enemy or our ally. The shattered mirrors are plastered along the walls. We clamor to find an exit or some indication of our place to further emphasize how unsettling it is. Our fractured reflections that become more and more distorted evince the oddities of our behavior slowly destroying us from within as we traverse the halls with lethargic trepidation. This definitely indicates that an unseen force is tampering with us as we pander a justified answer.

As the cracks start to develop into an intricate mirror of impressions under this delirium, it becomes very easy to shift our focus and becomes very challenging to stimulate a change.

We feel vexed and stupefied by how we are not able to find these answers just as quickly.

The anonymity of this stolid entity could be well attested by how it produces no emotion toward us. Regardless, we are all easily disturbed by the idea that we were wandering through a labyrinth without anything to help mark our location. To promulgate it lucidly, we are lost without a guide. There was nearly no light pervading through the grim foundation of steel.

All of the technical panels along the sides of the wall were fizzing and crackling even with the wires torn out, almost barely functioning, forcing the lights to flicker on and off in the halls.

We felt aroused by giddiness as we staggered, nearly slipping against the wall, when we found fetid blood spilled along the floor and splattered on the walls. We were abruptly repulsed, nearly convulsing, by this bilious sight of the seeping red that had manifested in a congealed form. Our faculties could not imagine as to who or what would have done this to force our minds to tremble at what had intruded inside this complex and generated this cruel act of bloodshed. We still shuddered at the sight of the ichor when there were no victims to be seen, and messages were embossed on the walls with warnings about the victims' fates.

As soon as we observed the scrawl, our minds were inundated with horrible thoughts.

Each of us procured samples from the walls and estimated that this amount of blood had been coagulated for several days, as some of it was wearing away into hardened fragments.

Rubbing it with our hands, we had trouble trying to get it off our skin, but we didn't really mind.

A repugnant, noxious smell of death filled the room to the point that we almost suffocated.

After averting our thoughts from the perception that a monster was hunting us, we continued to wander through the maze with its myriad of passages that slowly degraded our minds.

Something that we could not comprehend was stimulating us to run out of a survival impetus.

We were being pressed to move out of fear as soon as we heard the clanging strike of metal.

Inciting this sound whose source was a wrench had goaded such a echo that pained our ears.

On the spur of the moment, this momentum provoked our senses as if being hit with needles.

The thought that instigated the need to run for our lives was subsequently hit with more notes.

Obsequiously, we were assaulted by a symphony of advancing, extremely loud intonations.

Our slavish cadence was suppressed by this disquieting melody of unorthodox instruments.

We were immediately caught off by a dead end, shielding our ears when the noise cessated.

It seemed nearly inevitable for us to instantly bolster our senses in another strange encounter.

Our hearts were slowly calming down even when we noted the inscription of the message. This strange view of a beast was recounted on the writing to be lurking through the shadows, preying on the innocents who wander in the maze smeared with blood spewed upon iron with every gored victim that it gorges upon and eviscerates. No bones have ever been noticed.

What had become from this unification between god and man has spawned an amalgamation of a truly horrible beast forged by the presumptuous desires of crafting a deity incarnate.

We imagined that the wretched savage possessed no callous intelligence whatsoever. Its very nature had desired for a means to quench its stipulations for bloodlust to satisfy its hunger without mercy. It probably has no idea that it, like us, has been contained inside this prison.

We could not muster our group together for fear of what the barbaric enemy possessed.

The fiercely cold air made us shudder in submission, for we had become its next victims.

As soon as we heard an intensely disquieting moan that clearly did not come from a man, we immediately clamored for another entryway. We were all equally vulnerable, softly breathing.

The sounds had intensified time after time. We were surprised and scared at the same time.

I never wished to speak of a rigamarole about our discovery of this strange location.

It was difficult for us to compensate, to indemnify for our losses, whether physical, mental, or metaphysical. Perhaps, as we suppose, we are all locked inside a maze. This is the very object with which our minds are confounded by this odd circumstance of resisting fate itself.

Our jaunts of pleasure have become rough strides against the winds of change and chance.

The prototypical being of frustration and agony has manifested itself into a wall through which nothing can be perforated. The beast is likely a being beyond a constitution of metal or bones.

What is a tentative response would be to simply run or cower from this monstrosity. With no tutelar guide to point the way, we were wandering like rodents, scurrying along the halls. This punitive action was likely seen by the belligerents as a test for us to pass in the face of death.

This grave challenge, the tribulations wearing on our shoulders, easily evoke our discontent.

It seems like receiving a twinge of pain made us feel incredibly petulant and precocious.

The obstinate sense of direction that we have relied on for our entire lives is leading us to die.

We were all sent on this road to triumph with so many forks and turns that it's totally insane.

Surrounded by this perpetual blackness, we submit to all its mystifying, yet never magnanimous desire of trapping us inside a place that we cannot escape. When we had previously entered this strange maze, we were inside another room with no agents inside. There were only the cameras, those faceless sentinels that revolved in a uniform motion with efficient audacity.

That eerie sound of the blank cameras whirring as they focus on our intrusion without alarm further extrapolated the unsettling atmosphere. We tried shouting at them or doing something to get the security to be aware of our presence, yet we never did anything in our efforts to damage them in any way, for we had no weapons to spare. Even then we had an assumption that they would activate another intricate series of deathtraps. Nothing seemed the same.

As soon as we entered the door in front of us, the door locked rather abruptly. We nearly panicked under the stress that there were only small vestiges of light in the vicinity. The lights began to flicker on and off, and we gripped each other against this strange phenomenon.

Our bold countenances and resolute composure had instantly shifted into repulsive visages.

Nothing seemed more harrowing than the sounds of metal clanging against the walls, even coming from underneath us, bringing to our minds of the presence of a hidden lower floor.

Nothing could pass through the walls. It was almost as if it was some magical force that was blocking our fellow spirit from phasing through without being shocked and repelled in anger, being bounced away from the metallic polymer alloy. The skeptic postulated that something intermolecular specially integrated inside the material has the capability of distorting a phantom's neutrino makeup, destabilizes the energy output and manages to damage the ghost upon contact. The conspiracy theorist hotly answered with denouncing the theory as farfetched. To the undead being burdened by this hostile oddity, it was purely melodramatic. There was no reason to attest to this argument, as the genius won it with reasonable ease.

Something had to have been seminal enough to have established countermeasures for detecting and attacking and infiltrating spectral entities who try to cheat the idea of being victimized even in death, in spite of her abilities, greatly unnerved her.

We never wished to conform to these circumstances, and the fact that we had nothing to shoot at also bothered the roughly stout cowboy who was clamoring to face another ambush. The same debacle happened with the bomber girl, yet she was still consumed by the fear.

The situation could not be exacerbated any further. I eventually realized of a more detailed story of the other members of HOPE that reminded them of this horrible maze. More specifically, I had heard of their exploits based on how the paranoia had gotten to their heads.

All of them were promised a better life under a new system, yet by an egregious twist of fate, they were changed into expedient beings they did not want to become. They were amorphous shadows. It was almost as if their entire world had lost all connection with physical reality and has become a foundation of natural order, bound by a nature with little social advancement.

What was surprisingly noteworthy was how acute the timeless situation of our struggle against the enterprise had abruptly shattered our fragile minds, and the pieces are nearly everywhere.

Our excuses were inexorable for our feelings toward the heart that we have allowed to beat.

It was a monster. Nothing had struck me as great and invincible as the extent of our enemy's egregious expansion.

We were raving mad, the aggression severing our mental faculties and any hint of rationality.

Almost immediately, we could hear the mechanical heart of the fortress almost beating.

The thumps that echoed were the churning sounds of a volatile reactor, most likely a giant cyclotron, and the clashing might of the countless number of atoms, creators and destroyers. This random kinetic movement that reverberated in an unknown area is surmised to be a symbol for the sporadic extent and expansion of the role of science in unethical procedures.

It almost acts as anarchy itself, inciting a reaction that could not be contained or subjugated.

It does not believe in rules, it does not conform, and even in spite of enforcement, the individualistic mindset will rise up, declare it independence, and continue the vicious cycle. The lessons of the past have demonstrated that this impelled force can resist anything. Eventually, measures will have to be taken to quell this rebellion once and for all, at the expense of the great power to display a tremendous exhibition of force, yet it always fails.

The radiation, if this enormous machine was unable to cool the meltdown, would likely spread and devastate the surrounding area for many years with the onset of the engrossing tempest. This is the devastating backlash that poisons the minds and bodies of the coming generation.

Relations are tarnished. Unalienable rights are seized. The leaders exert too much power. All these injunctions and executive orders given demonstrate that they are throwing themselves against the wind, willing to put their credibility at the expense of their people.

This endeavor does not win the hearts and minds. These divisions are tearing cities apart.

These unfair practices ruin the reputation of the greats that will never be under-looked.

The vapid liberal media, false information, cannot repress the inundating flood of justice.

All these riots being suppressed by the state reinforce the need to impeach these men.

If all else fails, the men will have to get themselves in a scandal or get themselves killed.

The precautions have failed. The fissures are wrecking the foundations of civility. Streets run with blood and oil. Conformity falters. Liberty rises against the pursuit of a cynical happiness.

Populations are sparsely displaced amongst the iron rule of tyrannical corruption incarnate.

We still imagine this system of conformity also possessing the people, striking when they are the most vulnerable, controlling their every move in making them fit into a new way of life.

The veins are severed and blood spills out the huge gash. There is no way to stop the tide.

Nations are no longer governed by a single body. It is by the remnants of authority that vie for the total control of every single man, woman, and child through which enforcement is justified. The new knowledge has hampered their judgment. Our confrontation is a battle of the soul.

Even with the substantiated evidence that something was lurking inside the maze, we still were gripped by the fear of being brutally murdered as simpering fools subject to fate.

This institution suddenly made us feel uncomfortable inside as we knew that we were all being manipulated. We were the puppets, the sheep, the slaves, being used at the expense of our masters who might never been men or spirits at all, so what the conspiracy theorist plans.

We were struggling to be complacent within our very selves as well when we were being tugged on our invisible strings by unknown hands and being wildly toyed with at expense of our sanity. We might as well have existed to entertain rather than to evoke anything discreet.

It is never even remotely necessary to fringe our mindset of a world bounded by borders and laws that will eventually become part of an entity, enforcing martial law and total conformity.

Yet at the same time, we are being subjugated by rules that severely limit our civil rights.

We can never speak out against this injustice, even if we were told by the united nations that such things will inevitably happen to us if we choose to disobey their conduct. Just from contriving the notion that we are forced to follow the rules of the enemy makes us prone to question our loyalty and our identity as servants, loyal agents to bring down the enemy.

An image flashed in my head from several months ago. I was watching the horrible events come to life on my monitor in my dwelling. There was an act of terrorism in my home town that struck without warning. A major financial building was raided by unknown. Aerial camera footage observed the intrusion of five shadowy figures that were destroying the building from within. One of those personages were identified as a ghost, according to some witnesses, even when I had knew that such things were legends. Several buildings in the surrounding area were decimated as result. Bullets were flying and smashing the windows. Men were falling out of the windows. Several helicopters and military drones arrived on the scene and were quickly shot out of the sky before they could retaliate with actually trying. An entire unit of highly trained internal troops showed up with enforcement drones around the side and entered parts of the buildings. They immediately gunned down in the firefight. No demands were exchanged by the perpetrators. The thought ran past me that I wanted to step in myself with my bedecked standard issue gear and weapons. Within ten minutes, the shadows had left the premises. Suddenly, a large unmanned aircraft, likely reprogrammed by the terrorists and fitted with a high powered explosive device, swiftly crashed into one of the buildings and caused a gigantic explosion that devastated the middle of the building upon contact.

Several steel buildings were left crumbled in ruin only minutes after they burst into flame.

Law enforcement officials and firefighters were racing down the streets without delay.

I postulated that these terrorists had not come for the money to supply their goals. They may have wanted to gain an international presence. If they were the members of HOPE, they should not have intended to kill hundreds of innocent people in one fell swoop. They would have known of this already. Even if the criminals had no clear motivation, they were a grave threat to our national security. The ruination of several buildings compensates for billions.

The news footage was immediately cut off the air and an emergency broadcast was being issued. When we were ferried into the relief compound at the urging of soldiers, we saw the shadows racing past us. Dozens of civilians dropped dead in seconds. I was one of the few people who were running for my life, vulnerable to the terrorist threat, cowing in fear. Some of my friends were lost in the vicinity. I had raced to find them in all directions, but to no avail.

I could see the shadows looming over the wrecks of a building. As soon as I started to harass the terrorists, I ducked from an oncoming bomb that blasted a nearby wrecked car to pieces.

Almost immediately, the bullets flew over my head like a powerful tempest that was close to blowing me away. As soon as more bombs were thrown, I jumped and rolled into the dirt. Somehow, I was smacked across the face by an invisible wind that hid in the bilious smoke.

A tremendous pain in my head occurred as soon as I was launched into a fractured wall. My comatose mental state left me sleeping for several hours as I was shrouded in the smoke.

The sounds of sirens blaring in the distance grew loud and close to me for my brief slumber.

Thankfully, the shadows had retreated as the skirmish in the streets had long since cessated.

One of my friends had approached me in my cathartic state, just regaining consciousness. He was wearing an elite state military enforcer uniform of the internal troops stationed in the area.

His name was Reenitum, and he retained a very complacent manner toward my psychological state, noting of my injuries without asking any questions. He immediately told me that I needed medical help, yet I vehemently denied any assistance with getting up. There was no need to celebrate or relax, for my mind had become engrossed with the vagrant and vengeful feeling of revenge. I was recovering from my injuries with a gashing scar on my back that I have since covered up. It was on that very day of the terrorist attack that I decided to set off to eliminate the terrorists as soon as possible. I was thinking to myself for several hours. If I were to approach the situation, I would take my weapons with me and not bring anything else.

Everything was shattered in an instant at the midst of the embezzled forlorn and the abject.

The image of the building will serve as a testament for my justified hatred of terrorism.

My mental faculties were deteriorating by the time when I ventured out from the city toward the cave. My sense of protection and security was being offered up as a sacrifice to a god.

I had no weapons with me. I had my tenacity, coupled with food and water, to survive.

I was then moving on a path of tribulation and suffering, facing a temptation in the desert.

The rocks and sands shifting in the breeze of the night evoked a feeling of joy on my excursion that I have not felt in years, imagining my family being lost amidst the chaos.

The drones soaring like buzzards had reminded me of how the world was quickly changing,

yet the cycle of life still had revolved and circumvented, circumstantial of its many victims.

The elements served to attest to the foundation of man and its great wonders of life.

When I approached the cave and the members of HOPE, I was surprised with the gall as they addressed me as no threat. There were no indications that I was even dead to them at all.

They accepted me as a member of their group. I had no idea that they were insurgents at all.

After wandering through the maze, we had come across the exit which entered an office setting with swiveling chairs and a firm desk of mahogany, embezzled with the markings of DREAM. An enigmatic, eccentric man was sitting behind the rather tall chair, flicking his red pen up and down in the dimly lit room. He addressed us with a devilish smile of contentment.

There was no need to console any punitive act for our lack of disinformation for our trials.

All of those things were a simulation to us, yet reality was fleeting as something of a fantasy.

This person was the head of the DREAM operations in the middle east, a major target also.

"Hello, friends. I commend you for your prowess in making through the bloody maze. Yes, I do not forget the KRAD stormtroopers. You'll need some work on dealing with the soldiers. Don't worry. You'll hopefully have better luck against the real deal". I was saddened and shocked.


	7. Chapter 6: The Elusive Xypor

I had then entered another dream of me on the night in the cave before I had encountered the agents of the new world order. This was another horrible nightmare that imagined me lost in a desert in the blackness of night, with low rations, on the brink of death. I am only armed with my weapons. A reaper is always passing along the desert, stalking its prey, without warning, according to the legends of my parents. Its lugubrious cloak enshrouded it into the empty wasteland to the point that its presence and influence could be felt anywhere. Its eternally gloomy face composed only of a skull and bones had shown no decay with time. The eyes that resonated the fires of damnation signified the inevitability of the situation. What I could tell from the scythe with its pervasive long blade being so long suggested how easy it was to be inferiorized by a force of nature. Three black helicopters fly over sands, surrounded by clouds.

The fact that they were masked by a vacant environment made this elusive enemy even more intimidating, The winds undulating with time, whenever they became more intense, I knew of this disruption and only took advantage of the time to hide from the advanced tools of death.

My fortitude in its heightened senses was worried of being assaulted by the terrorists again.

The horrifying images of burning buildings had greatly disturbed and beset my mental state.

The shadowy implants of the terrorists looming toward me amidst the chaos beleaguered me.

The notion of being watched from everywhere I venture is inherently palpable to my faculties.

I did not want to be victimized by being beaten about by the wind again without any warning.

The disruption of nature provoked my stimulus to the extent that it exhibited no fear of death.

I sensed that the movement, methodology, and efficiency of the machine made it thoughtless.

My excursion with Reenitum and his experiences, with his personal anecdotes, informed me.

His mind was not totally desensitized to the point of converting to the brainwashed collective.

My injury was being treated at my dwelling with denying his demands imploring me to seek medical care. I thought that he was crazy, for he didn't have much of a social life from just me.

For the sake of my degrading sanity and for his safety, I simply ignored the festering fool.

To my chagrin, he was becoming more of an annoyance like a suppurating blemish on skin.

On the day before I left my dwelling for the great unknown, I had dreamed of a better place.

I had imagined that they had suspended contact with me as soon as I silently left the building.

They were ready to deploy agents after me for reasons that conflicted with state policies.

I had never learned from the experiences of men being assassinated for resisting authority.

Even if I was a major proponent of their revolution in the middle east, they took me as a pawn.

Chicanery and perfidity was only one impertinence that made me willing to trust in myself.

Staring into the iconography of an eponymous eye makes me worried to even speak my mind.

Now, in the face of my very reputation, I face the imposing demeanor of the man at the desk.

My comrades had referred to him in the likeness of a vexing devil awaiting our attentions.

I have never heard of this man, or any man, who had bore the name of Xypor. I could deduce that he seemed strangely nice toward me without any shift in his stolid stature. Looking at his suit, I saw that it was bedecked with several medals of honor he won in the service. A symbol of, formerly, the greatest country in the world, the national bird, gazed at me along the desk.

Xypor was formally dressed, resplendent in an managing uniform that evoked total control.

I could not even cognise his attitude from that of my former commander of the enemy ranks.

He is known as an excellent tactical commander, an officer, yet he appeared like a ruthless businessman with hands folded as he was moving to sit down on his expensive chair with an almost uniform stride as he intended to make a proposition. His firm furrow of black stuck out to me oddly for being so formal after preening. It surprised me as to how this strange man had come to greet us with such a complacent manner, typical of that of an ossified bureaucrat. Not one of my comrades had informed me about anything in his life that compelled him to be almost emotionless in his comportment. It might have been his propensity to act in such a way, repressing almost all his feelings to the point that he develops no sense of sympathy. As soon as I read that smirk and those delighted eyes, I was eager to hear the rest of what he had to speak. He seemed so calm in the midst of our squabbling. I did not have any sense of a presentiment that he was a pervert of any sort by looking at the objects around the room.

He proceeded to open a compartment under his desk in order to procure a pair of sunglasses.

After wearing the object, he became more like the agents that we had previously fought.

His capricious behavior was evident with befuddlement in front of a lot of simpering children.

There was no sense of solidarity even in his blackened mirrors that complicated the mystery.

Like glass, everything was shattered and broken, and everything that was it was too fragile.

Perhaps he was gazing into our souls with those eyes of his that made him become so formidable in his manners. We all immediately stood and saluted in unison, the thought of me complying with the group could not be explained with such vigor. Xypor opened his mouth. He then instantly collected his panderings over what to do for us, confounded at our losses.

After shaking his head, we lowered our heads in sorrow in front of his punitive exasperation.

The sublime savant man sighed in disbelief and rubbed his hands on his frail sideburns, trying to seem rather calm when he clasped his hands together and tried to maintain his stature.

I made no intention to reproach the man when he prepared to face another worthless excuse.

The foppish figure seemed to be rather eager to utter another tirade of failure without delay.

"What surprises me of you all is the fact that you hesitate to fight back against the terrorists. I mean, really. You expect me to believe that you're supposed to be so good at all with those feats of yours and your training? Yet you've managed to let this one slip under your cover unnoticed! For all we could have known, he could have been a terrorist. This Leber, is it?

Now he knows everything about us. Our cover might as well be blown right this instant."

"They took our guns away! Now you might as well suspect that they'll take our jobs too!" expostulated George, clearly unable to seek any rapprochement to placate the tensions.

"Quit whining. You all well know that this was staged. I'm tired of having to babysit a bunch of kids. You can't fight a war when you fight amongst yourselves." the staunch leader entreated.

"For what do you discern?!" urged Wenqian, predetermining that no technology was present in the cave. She quickly intended to support her own statement. Mark immediately interposed.

"Xypor! Sir! Why would you do this?" Mark replied hotly, hastening to be diffident.

"Those bloody hooligans blasted me with this strange flashy gun!" a surly Spectra screeched.

"I was cut off by the terrorists too! I couldn't defend myself!" Aria bawled with a florid face.

When a tentative Mark was groveling on the floor, brooding in anguish as if someone died, he conceived another conspiratorial farce with no veracity whatsoever as an excuse. It was only a matter of time when I discovered that Xypor was leading a group of discharged KRAD militants, forcing them on dangerous tasks that would supposedly cost them their lives.

I was astonished at the commander himself as he muttered the idea of this deceitful cover up.

This thought imbued the very room itself, projecting the notion that we were all being used.

Xypor was talking to the other five as if I wasn't there to begin with, even with George's reluctance to refrain from any speech prattling about like a persisting, disconcerted child.

"As I know that you have all been rendered enemies of the sovereign authority, I am now forced to dismiss you. A future training exercise will be prepared for you five momentarily."

"What about the one who calls himself Leber?" retorted Wenqian. "His purpose elicits value."

"I was getting to that." The man projected an insipid thought that forged itself a concrete wall.

"Don't you dare hurt him!" screamed Aria, attempting to shatter the illusionary construct.

"Don't you dare resist my authority." the enigmatic leader reinforced the connected barrier.

"On what grounds?" The explosive girl retorted with a shrill yelp. Xypor immediately scowled.

"My superiors, don't you understand? You haven't even managed to let me finish."

"Why don't they just show up already? Mortals have no superiors! Their arrogance will inevitably run themselves into their graves! I can take them where they need to go!"

The supercilious spirit soared up to her victim, striking an intimidating pose, baring her fangs.

The thought of anything above Xypor was seen as diminutive and derivative of propaganda.

"I most certainly concede!" attested Wenqian, losing her thought of the event being staged. She immediately projected a sadistic gaze apropos to the thought of him being eviscerated.

I was surprised at the virgens' defiance as I remained quiet, forcing me to nearly pass out in all the chaos. My mental faculties immediately jumped at the voice. "Leave me alone with the risk, this liability." Xypor immediately exhibited the same stagnant, soulless tone as before.

He pressed a red button hidden under a panel in his desk. A pair of metal claws emerged from the walls and restrained me, pulling me toward him while raising me over the glass floor. I was compelled to instinctually imagine that there was a similar device somewhere else.

I couldn't break free with my strength. The others rushed to my aid, attempting to pry them open with their bare hands, but they were shocked by electricity installed in the traps. "Please. Leave him alone. No harm will come to him, yet. Leave the two of us be." Cameras were secretly watching us, projecting an array of lasers around me and Xypor that would set off an alarm and trigger a secret security system. It set off as soon as the five left the room.

It was impossible for me to be transposed in any way. I was compelled to hear the soft voices of the defeated as they hastened to another part of the compound. Thankfully, my captor did not do anything as to silence me or threaten my fundamental freedom of speech. This person was quite irascible in his unequivocal temperament toward me or any of my kind at all. He was masked underneath that threatening flair as he regressed into the shadows behind him.

He folded his hands again, tipping his imposing glasses, and lurched forward, staring at me with such a contemptuous countenance upon my contingent compliance to his commands.

I was seething with rage, as I still could just barely reach a combat knife in my pocket.

My enemy had turned himself around for only a few seconds, glancing at a reflective panel.

Withdrawing from my opponent's sight, I could writhe through and move my knife to the point that I could aim it right for the nape of his neck. Suddenly, I was shocked by the metal arms as soon as its luster tinged against the metal. The knife immediately slipped out of my hand. The resonance of the knife hitting the glass floor produced a relentlessly reverberating din.

I screamed in pain, startled, the pain in my insides were nearly ready to be scratched as the knife made a feeble impression, slicing and gashing through my epidermis without any effort.

Xypor immediately turned to me without any expression, never uttering a sign of register.

Immediately, I wished for the opponent to release my chains so I could rip out his insides.

It seemed so frivolous for me to every contend with the strength of a military commander.

He likely had known how to wrestle and tackle as another member of, formerly, the greatest country in the world, yet I was still invigorated, imploring and entreating him to come at me.

There was likely a manifold, a multifold of involute, intricate solutions to challenge my heel.

My heart was racing, forcing my body to create an explosion that could not be extinguished.

With infinite complacency, Xypor was enamored and induced by the pleasure of binding me.

I could hear a petulant, coquettish cry pleading for mercy from the door across from me, vehemently denying my physical suppression even when I was fixated on his reddened eyes.

I had presumed that it was one of the girls with their faint voices seeking to release me.

I then heard the noises, though very soft, of another female retaining her delighted tone.

The intonation of five distinctive voices, three feminine and two masculine in their enunciation, their garrulous mannerisms, did not believe that there was a need to save me after all. They were still addressing my presence, after all, without any exclamation of a suspenseful tone.

There was no mention of any contention between them, anything remote of an argument.

It seemed to me that the words were diffusing into the room through hidden audio recorders.

Soon the sounds had reached a period of perpetual cessation, and they were trapped within the confines of the gallows of besmeared and congealed blood along the walls in the maze.

I was immediately forced into a state of impotence at the mercy of Xypor's hidden agenda.

At the same time, I was astonished by the liberal intricacies inside his dreary living quarters.

My heart was riveted by the iota of being immolated by the likes of him to inspect my insides.

It was difficult for me to procure the fallen knife as I was hanging above it or even relax at all.

The corrugated ridges on the silver tipped blade of the knife was visible, penetrating my soul.

I gazed into my reflection of the mirror under the unbreakable reflection of the blade itself. Xypor was playing a mind game, anticipating with audacity to lurch over and snatch the knife.

"What the hell do you want?" I hollered with a laconic entreaty under my wearing breath.

"Thank you for asking, Mister Leber. We've been expecting you." He procured a clear folder.

Surprisingly, the man never wanted to castigate me for my negligence or my vexed being.

It was difficult for me to calm down at all. He then opened the folder and ran has hand down a page of information that possessed a collection of several papers inside it, each fastidiously organized in such a manner, with the supposition that I was being documented like a criminal or even an animal. I was being scrutinized with those harrowing eyes of his under his glasses.

It was impossible for Xypor's behavior to be demassified in his dignified demands for my kind.

Everything was classified down to the very fine print that propagated like a virus inside of me.

This very feeling of admonition saturated my inchoate conscience with many tentative beliefs.

The beckoning of him tapping a red pen against the table instantly drew my attention to him.

He had used the speakers to dramatically amplify the volume and increase it tenfold, to which

the resonance bombarded like undulating waves crashing in the force of a terrifying typhoon.

As soon as the waves had subsided, the pronouncements of the higher power became clear.

The man was never thrasonic, for at this point, I had no idea why he had adopted this succor.

As soon as he commenced a peroration, I felt that propaganda surged down my ear canal.

"We have known much about you, Mister Leber. I have seen your actions of terror that you have inflicted against the common decency of every man, woman, and child. You seem to be this mere menace to society, other societies, I suppose. Established order is meaningless to your kind. It will always fall because in fact your entire kind has failed to realize of its true potential by your very transgressions. Because of the fact that you will end the lives of your own men will inflict grave wounds upon your souls and will continue the ruination everlasting.

Your existence, a mere conception as a portent to an entire amalgamation is purely desultory.

So forlorn and abject. Once, I reveled in the idea of freedom and independence in itself. It is something that is abstract. Today, I find that there is no need to be free. The phrase 'freedom ain't free' comes to mind, something of the past you or the others will never understand, an antiquity with no need to be preserved. Thankfully, I still have my dignity intact, a reason to survive. You are living many lives. The fault of your casuistry is that you have no sense of freedom within yourself. You have decided to break away from society and your mind has deteriorated on a state of hypochondria. You are not well. For some reason which I intend to attain from your mind is why. My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you."

"They wouldn't!" I was disturbed at the thought of being betrayed by my former comrades.

"According to these files, I have you labeled a security risk and I have you labeled an ally."

"Where did you get those?" I felt like I was being challenged and demanded some validation.

"Classification does not refer to location in this instance. Precision of language."

"Shut the hell up!" I decided to immediately refute his vexing claim without any cooperation.

"Or do I have to speak in a way that you can understand me? Okay, I will. You have a very important decision to make. Now, I'm going to shut off the arms now. Don't move."

When facing his callous gaze, I couldn't shirk of the deal under my inimical ire that possessed me from within. I was soon thrown into a metaphorical pit through which I could not escape.

The captious demeanor of the man revealed his astuteness, brandishing his pen as a sword.

There was no need to mitigate the tensions in our contention, for it was immediately decisive.

I never threw in the towel at the man who was just as iniquitous in his proclivity as the others.

He then staggered toward me with an odd gait, exposing his sententious smile of solicitude.

His imposing countenance was reflected by his conniving repute as a manipulative officer.

The unsettling chamber became lugubrious when I was alone with a businesslike madman.

"Alright. The decision you will have to make will determine your continued stay. Do note that we will be watching you. Don't even bear to contact your friends." He remained innocuous.

His only sign of emotion was a smirk on his face when he gesticulated an opening hand.

"I can assure you that I am not aligned with that scum, Xypor, Sir!" He had swiftly turned with his back to me under a dignified air that laundered his very identity yet it was not liquidated.

The man had never assailed me at that point, only beckoning me to come over with his finger.

I could only assume that he adopted a crass mannerisms in order to confound and torment.

He pressed the big red button with his hand enveloping over it. Everything had shut down.

I could not detect any manner of prevaricating in his ghastly stare that had possessed him.

The shackles retracted into the wall, the laws of nature and gravity forcing me to fall upon the cold glass interior as hard as my combat knife. The glass never showed any sign of cracking.

At my very mercy, he was pandering about at his desk with his hand covering his thick chin.

I was not well, for as soon as I slammed face first onto the floor, my heart suddenly jumped.

Within myself, I was spluttering like a broken record, my thoughts spinning like a hurricane.

It was impossible for me to control my thoughts, for I would always pander for the time to act.

I came up to Xypor and resisted the urge to spit in his face. Gulping down my nascent spittle, I immediately gestured a hypersensitive smile, baring my teeth in reassurance for my actions.

With the entrance opened, I was happy to have escaped from the confines of the prison.

A suspicious vibe was forcing my hair to stand on end. I turned myself around to notice the stalker gazing in front of me. Xypor turned to me with revealing a contract and a black pen, eliciting no emotion in his complacent insinuation. He only allowed me to read the first page which happened to be one of many. The hubris in his mind coordinated his mind to turn crass and trick me again, forcing nearly the entire folder to force itself to close. Words floated past one another like the flow of a raging river until the end of the where the signature poised itself out like a freshly open wound that had punctured and permeated my mind with a furtive formality. Rather hastily, I scrawled my identity upon the paper with an insolent impunity from what seemed to be a minor impertinence at best until it disappeared. This very contract didn't seem important, yet it bound me toward a tumultuous fate beyond the control of my comrades. Xypor himself seemed rather demure upon watching me walk out of the room with no security.

Our pugnacious quarrels had subsided as I entered the maze alone divided and discomforted.

His aspersions echoed through my head as if I were under a delirium or a persisting guilt.

Even wanting to affront the man would likely lead to my submission under the enemy scum.

My suppositions warranted that the man could not be trusted, for he still toted such perfidy.

The time to meet my new friends was extraordinarily ample, as I located them in six minutes.

Astonished to see me, the other five had the same tentative complexion over my very fate.

George immediately greeted me with a sententious attention, demanding my total compliance. His vanity had turned himself into a crazy person in front of me rather quickly at my dismay.

He insinuated a very vexing state of excitement, proud to have me join their constabulary.

Sternly, I was thrown into a circumstantial void where a cacophony of sounds was dissonant.

"Howdy, partner!" He immediately grabbed my hand and shook with reprobation. I surmised that the encounter seemed to be less an pardonable impertinence and I showed a smile.

It was difficult for me to elucidate, attest, or to be impelled to his disturbing drawl in any way.

Mark, being the compulsive conspirator that he is, was rather tacitly reserved in his intention, gesticulating with flicking his finger for me to come over and insisting to whisper to my ear. He smiled with an amiable expression. I could hear a very slight murmur of congratulation. His usual proceedings continued their discourse once more with addressing his odd concerns.

The circumstances still convinced me that even if I had joined the group, there was evil afoot.

Under his clairvoyant voice, he directed me of our future course of action about the matters.

"Leber, I must inform you. You may not know of this, but there is something awfully strange going on in the compound. Something beyond our comprehension." Mark had firm conviction.

"You mean Xypor?" Mark instantly froze upon the mere uttering of my ephemeral questioning.

"Say, I've heard Xypor is a- pretty nice guy-he treats us like we're a part of his family."

The face-saving propaganda festered in his iniquitous mind like that of a banal parasite.

Mark being overly generous toward my captor seemed to be quite strange at my instigation.

He had declared his statement rather huffily, his dignity being fragile and easily shattered.

My dissension in trying to even address my conjectures about the real enemy only satisfied his quivering at the glare of a hidden security camera installed within the blood adorned wall.

My aggrievance on the matter forced me to remain reticent in the other interested females.

Aria's conduct seemed surprised to see me, reaching out to hug me with uneasy anticipation.

"Leber! You're alright!" She insisted my consent in the renewal of our depraved interest.

"Aria, please!" I sternly prevaricated, yet it was too late to be roused. I exerted a cold smile.

The pallid furtive phantress was feeling my shoulder, cold before her intangible arms felt me.

"Leber, it seems that something is rather dodgy about you. I can sense it in your breath. You do have quite some gen in your thoughts. There's no need to haggle over them, mortal one." Her egotistical slander was reduced to a warm greeting that was not even haughty or lofty.

"Spectra, what are you doing?" My reassurance in her had dramatically outweighed any reproof. "Oh, nothing, I'm just gandering to notice if you're alright. It's all tickety-boo, I do say."

She still toted her pronouncements typical of her eloquent lifestyle, being bored as a spirit.

The skeptic Wenqian came up to my other side, revealing a sadistic gaze I never saw before.

Her very lugubriousness had resounded from her radiating glare that seemed mostly black.

"I inquire of your confessions. I desire for every word in its veracity, down to the last detail! Bound by fate, we all are, yet we long for our own true hopes! Something we all question!" She implored for my postulations about Xypor and what he did to make me internally suffer.

"Wenqian, I don't understand anything about Xypor. I wanted him to stop demeaning me!"

"Please! That is enough! One of the portents I need to verify my hypothesis! I thank you, sir!"

Wenqian went off delighted of her findings while the others followed in the group with her.

I tagged along in the midst of their suppositions about a pragmatic, eccentric, callous Xypor. Traversing the maze was especially daunting for me, as something else was definitely close.


	8. Chapter 7: Broken Image

Immediately after my meeting with my comrades I was acquainted to reach another area that actually extended down by several floors. The foundation of the tenebrous building itself was developed over several underground floors, housing a host of hidden venues, linked by many winding corridors that seemed to transpose for at least several hundred feet. Everything was classified by the organization, concealed within many defensive areas. Outside was an enormous training complex that was fitted to suit the needs of the people. I could feel the grains of sand touch my body. A set of enormous staggering rocks served as armatures. Everything seemed so real to me, yet this freedom was meaningless. I was induced by a temptation that drew me there. Perhaps, the fleeting moments of a purgatory would soon digress into perdition. Something would not allow me to wake up. There were in fact many scientists in the complex that were contracted by other branches of DREAM, yet the reason that they had disappeared was due to the increased security and were found at a bottom level at the center of operations. The place seemed so deserted, as if I were venturing through a technological graveyard. Cameras were stationed everywhere. Mark was growing suspicious as to how the very scenery itself moved into place as if some god was possessing them, leaving enormous holes. One of the enormous structures was shaped in the anachronistic design of a pyramid, which presumably served as a control tower. Hangers, artillery cannons, and missile silos were concealed in the rock. Surprisingly, there was little internal security inside the buildings themselves. DREAM used automated turrets with sensors and cameras. Underground armories were established with full stocks of weapons with very few soldiers. A triumvirate of supercomputers was consolidated by major technological contractors. These machines exigently maintained control over the entire facility. It has a very pedantic and intricate series of internal security systems specially integrated without any opprobrium.

The base itself was especially vulnerable to attack, yet it had been fully constructed for many years, long before HOPE came along. The massive structures were so conspicuous yet were never visible to the public of my country. It will still be the result of government cover ups. There was also the purported rumor that DREAM also has the funding to rebuild ruined cities.

One thing that surprised me was how much funding was amassed by the united nations. The skeptic prepossessed a theorem that the stipulation for all branches of DREAM in past operations exceeded the costs of the arms race by both superpowers from over fifty years ago. DREAM was only active in its existence for at least ten years. Wenqian has told me that DREAM has the power to start and end conflict, and it will have the power to ensure balance.

Over the skies, I was surprised to see strange speeding shapes flying in the distance. My friend Mark informed me that they were supersonic reconnaissance drones. An elite military unit entirely separate from that of the national army of my country has been stationed here.

The area itself is isolated due to extremely advanced technology that DREAM develops.

Hopefully, there will be comforts for me beyond the standards of my former employment.

As I vacillate my viewpoints, my opinions oscillate dramatically toward that of reconciliation.

Like the scientists and personnel and the loyal friends, I hope to be granted access to at least most of the greater facility through gaining my exclusive special access card, the benefits of supporting a great organization. In the back of my mind, it seems hard for me to accept the greater good with the leisure in addition to the responsibility. Learning from the issues of my friends, I solicited that they were undergoing much stress, yet they were as indignant as ever. Something as far as being poster children of a international organization was very dubious.

There was this slavish, submissive role they played. For me, it was simply not a game at all.

My very faith was thrown against the duress of not only my friends but the actions that I could not control and have since been unable to expiate. I could not stop the attack of the drones. I could not stop the attack of the soldiers. Something was hiding in the back of my head that we had not turned the forces of the united nations into retreat and exterminated them off. The contrition of our efforts could not be measured, as something had affected our minds.

Surprisingly, the DREAM organization had surprisingly planted its seed without us realizing it.

We have been able to take advantage of this opportunity to aid our arcane arbitrary interests.

Each of the six of us were brought together for some strange purpose in fighting what seem to be a manifold high priority fanatic terrorist groups, yet we have reasons to believe that they are supplied by the KRAD government in the midst of their insurgencies. Mark has claimed that he has seen passing supply helicopters drop hidden supplies over compounds. The government has allegedly helped fostered the development of such cells worldwide, yet it is surprisingly indirectly. For some reason, they have managed to clash against KRAD forces near their territory and have been vanquished almost instantly with its superior technology. The radical unreasonable anger has made it submissive to the greater power of business.

What was seen as a capital idea for the corporate magnates, to control the region, was extremely successful with current technological breakthroughs and oscillating economic trends. The insane barbarian could be, in a sense, tamed without any outside interference.

The thought of being a plaything greatly disturbed me as much as being a lifeless puppet.

Through the course of events, my faith in a supposed god had thrown me into conflict with my own judgment and my disconnection from this higher power has left me very confused. My very faith mentality and morality were vexed and viced by the conspiracy theorist that there wasn't even a point. The propaganda surely made it clear that these wars were not religious in nature. One report that George surprisingly had the fortitude to read from his home country dealt with a terrorist attack on a religious place with the supposed perpetrators being godless.

Being conflicted over which gods to believe in bothers me when evil is literally everywhere.

Such impudent succor cannot be sought when some illusionary higher power is not able to govern everything that can be done through science. Luck is not of a god's favoring at all.

It seems that the KRAD group has its own agenda over waging a crusade against dissenters.

The authority carries it out with brutal enforcement to the point that it seems almost soulless.

In addition, its political messages are supposedly revealing an pernicious view of deception.

I still wish to pursue my own arbitrary interests of avenging my family and my country, which is likely those of the others' intentions. George intends to save his country and prove his heroism, so boldly that he is reproached for not thinking in the midst of overwhelming odds. More specifically, his heroism has stimulated his hatred for everything that doesn't go his way.

Mark and Wenqian, rather peevishly, seek to ascertain everything that can be found about the KRAD collective and its supposed role in world affairs, and are almost frazzled by the notions.

Spectra plans to undermine the group responsible for her change and hopes to see more ascendant spirits that are willing to join her side. She has befriended several members in hidden undead communities. Aria's motive is only to better her relationship with her boyfriend.

We continued to traverse the arid landscape in the hope of temporarily reclaiming our thoughts blowing in the winds of perfidy, treachery and justice denied to all of us. We were walking without any order in our locution or stride whatsoever, as if were were not machines.

Under the sumptuous clothing of the members of our group, the females stood out the most.

I looked at Mark as he continued to look at the bulging buttoxes of the three females with no mouth agape, as if he were spuriously suppressing his feelings, esconced like his cold smile. He was silently lurking up to them with envious eyes, belying the notion of fear in his mirth.

I did nothing to distract him, for I was observing how it was impossible to preclude his drool.

Being disgusted, I still wanted to imagine the three hellions beating him rather comically.

With a relentless deference, their irascible heads shook wildly without any sense of order.

The women jumped and turned themselves around without presenting any presuppositions about Mark's perversion. This prominent issue was so visible as to the point that Mark was staring at the females' chests, a contemptuous countenance was so conspicuously shown.

Each of them sharply turned their heads and delivered three smacks all at once right at Mark's left cheek. George and I could hear the sounds, as we were right next to him, yet the impetus was so dramatic that it foisted a tempest that blasted through our ears like water in a funnel. Mark immediately staggered and faltered to the ground like a statue with his face in the sand, as if he had no effort within him to stand at all. He frantically shoveled sand as he squabbled with incongruous speech. He assumed the gait of a crab and scuttled over hastily.

As soon as he rose again, without screaming, the obtrusive pain that he experienced was almost aesthetic to him, for he was reveling in the shape of the three converging stigmas.

Like the many famous paintings, it offered a new dimension that was greatly venerated.

The three females laughed to the point that they were almost crying. I could only surmise as to what Mark was garrulously suggesting in the gesticulation of pushing his hands together.

George then had the urge to laugh, a rather smothered snigger before slapping his knee.

I was unphased by the vilifying of the women by the actions of Mark, on the fringe of isolation.

It was impossible for me to muster an emotion at the feeling of being a lowly pervert at all.

After brushing the minor impertinence aside, we ventured on to the sumptuous training room.

What caught my attention was the black room surrounded by an abstruse dominating shadow.

At our most vulnerable and disturbed were the three women. Wenqian found the light switch.

For only a few seconds, we shielded our eyes from the intense luminosity of seven beams.

There was a series of mats and rings and punching bags lined up in a uniform unison. There were also a series of targets set up for a shooting range. A set of high performance desktop computers was positioned in another separate room, visible through glass. George's face was lit up by immediately gazing our weapons in a crate, right by the targets, rushing and grabbing it. Overcome with delight, he raved in delight at the sight of the guns and tossed them in the air like voluminous piles of leaves, upon which they dropped like rakes on a hard pavement.

Since there was no trap, or no cameras moving against the corners of the ominous grey wall, we all grabbed our weapons and were extremely excited to witness the fruits of our labor.

I could not recent any sense of suspicion as we began to train under the heat of our vigor.

We had spent in the room for at least an hour, and I was watching a mirror with a large crack.

I was fixated by this image and had formulated several ideas for how this impression formed.

As I continued doing push ups and flexing, I was seeing myself in the conundrum as well.

I still envisioned a distorted figure exhibiting emotion, yet it was nearly indiscernible to me with all the imposing cracks that what cutting at my soul, leaving lasting impressions like canyons.

The blood was flowing through like water or was not present at all or had totally dried up.

I felt that I was being manipulated right down to the smallest fragment of interstitial glass.

Everything was so uniform, yet easily fragile, just like emotions, just like ourselves. All the aggregated perceptions of totalitarian state was reflected in the efficacy of its many followers.

The nuances of the demands inform us that no deep thought is necessary for our age. We are beyond the age of reasoning. We have the power to form our own age and the tools to do so.

The intricate logistics and methodology of the state alleviated, mollified, pacified us to no end.

We had a desire to reform the implanted imperfect image or destroy it all and start anew.

When Wenqian arrived to stand by me, her voluptuous figure standing beside me, she has obscured herself inside the conundrum, and once again appeared broken beyond repair.

She was questioning in her head, a sad shell narrowly brainwashed to the point of perceiving what is beyond limitations, beyond boundaries, beyond rational thought and reasoning.

It surprised me as to realize that we should need a mirror to denote our imperfections.

I was appalled by how I appeared. I had scars on my neck from some attack. Blood was running down my arm so quickly that it filled the crevices of my hands like flowing rivers.

A knife had suddenly flew past my sight. I felt that thankfully nothing was slipping from me.

Mark had appeared along my side, licking his lips with my blood and smearing the remains.

I did not even have the will to question his suspicious actions. He must be collecting samples.

Perhaps he intends to find out whether I am a man possessed or am some demon incarnate.

I have turned myself around with my damaged reflection with revealing no abnormal oddities.

In stark contrast, the percolation of the blood was slowly lessening to the point of congealing, and had never accelerated beyond the control of my body, even if slightly disturbed by death.

I then moved away from the weights, not realizing that Wenqian was to materialize again.

She caught me by surprise as I bumped into her with my head looking at the dense walls.

I turned to elicit shock and expounded my transgressions with most magniloquent vernacular.

Those words were "I'm so sorry." I then fashioned a smile that immediately vitiated her look.

I felt a shiver run down my neck when a diametric Spectra rapidly materialized in front of me.

The image of the germane phantress was disturbing without uttering her imperious brogue.

As she had suspended herself in air without expressing her peevish petulance, she appeared more intimidating as a monster to a great extent without even trying to distort her appearance.

She lit up with such mirth to my dubious delight, expressing some sadistic liking for the blood.

Surprisingly, she carefully licked the wound and savored the flavor, smacking her grisly lips.

Aria with her profligate sententious splendor was standing across from me, allayed all by herself and not being told to shut up. Her image was diminished from an imposing personage, receding from another fractured. mirror As she walked over to another mirror, her image was boosted to a diminutive stature. When she stretched her legs out, she became both beings.

Subsided and risen, the undulating waves were immediately bound to a state of equilibrium.

Then, Aria was just herself, a visceral, tactile thing no longer in a state of disconcordance.

I never had the urge to vociferate about Mark's invidious intrusion and abjure his viced views.

I could not subsume my restrained feelings any longer like that of an egregious dictatorship.

With the onset of a revolution in my mind and body, I had finally sought the truth for the worst.

Thrust underneath the privations of my sorrow, nothing could extenuate the horror I had of my mental abuse. It was striking at my head when I least expected it, constantly bludgeoning me with painful headaches that nearly made me unable to retain my very balance. Something was prepossessing me without me knowing, something intangible, something beyond reason.

I pondered to myself if this is a punishment for my crimes from the god I had once renounced.

I had a tremulous lachrymose locution in my beleaguered voice. I was speaking my mind.

It was impossible for me to prevaricate about the effects of my delirium and disturbed mind.

A sadistic thought was accumulating inside my head like that of a malignant virus. My daring recklessness, combined with my fastidiousness of my arbitrary interests, was now challenged.

George entered the room, coming to address his qualms without any sense of impotence.

Oddly, he seemed rather repulsed by how I had never addressed the pain on my bloody arm.

He rushed to my aid with a bandage and covered it up without admonishing anything to me.

George smiled with giddiness and replied, "Just helping a partner out" as I weirdly staggered.

Images were rushing through my head that depicted soldiers beating, shooting, and yelling.

I was confounded, yet I knew that the wound was not deadly, for not if the cut were liberal.

The cowboy guffawed and almost had the urge to snigger at my obstinate movements.

Being magnanimous was something I had never seen teenagers from, formerly, the greatest country in the world, totally unexpected from an unruly, undignified, and scrofulous scoundrel.

George never developed a depraved countenance in front of my presence, such a good thing.

With his jaunty stride as he walked away, he never showed arrogance as he looked away.

He appeared to be oblivious of my presence, yet he might already think I will still stay there.

Absent of his commonplace truculence, George was finally reserved with a new kind image.

It was difficult for me to address the need for mental consolation in an abject artificial facility.

After pondering for a few more minutes in total silence, I continued to ponder upon my life.

Mark was the person who I most despised with all my indignation for his disturbing pleasures.

Mark's viced intentions always throw me into a vexed state of mind whenever I watch him.

I had no feeling of penitence for his methods of gaining evidence or postulating about nothing.

My only hope of trying to reach him would be through an intense psychological session.

I was being coerced by the conviction to convince Wenqian to speak in a laconic manner.

At this present moment, her statements always bring ignominy in her attempt to speak to us.

She must be trying to impress us with her loquaciousness and conceited behavior but fails.

I still believe that her precocious talents are of use to us when she can reach out to us easily.

I encourage that both of the females, living and dead, can communicate without flaunting.

My reproaching and contempt toward their deceitful actions assure that they all must cease.

Whenever I observe the two other vestal seductresses in the installation, I am bothered by their pretensions that detract from their self-worth even when they are trying to impress me.

My impressions of Xypor are just as dismal when he develops his very boundaries of control.

Being manipulative and conniving under the iron wall constructed by his own mind is his forte.

In any instance when I am acquainted with him, I hope to devise some way to get my end of the bargain soundly fulfilled without any infractions against my record as more than a guest.

It was very profound to observe that I am scrutinized by Xypor if he is being a salient parent.

I hope that he can attest to the notion that we have our freedoms that should not be revoked.

With his enigmatic perfunctory comportment, he has both the upper hand and the lower hand.

With the abrupt change in my mind, I decided to leave the training facility into the hallway, cantillating in my head the ancient songs my parents and I used to sing, before it all changed.

The eclectic perceptions of reality and a higher existence weighed on my wounded shoulders.

Images of the enormous explosions of the past were flashing in my mind as they rose above the clouds like blossoming mushrooms, releasing creation and destruction in their wake.

Surges of the blast waves travelled over the region unabated, leaving a lasting impression.

There were only massive craters that forced everything inside it like an enormous monster.

I saw no people being vaporized or leveled cities, since the weapons were used in a desert.

Even if there were people, the black rain would slowly and surely bring the end of their lives.

For some odd reason, I saw these devastating weapons as instruments of this strange deity.

One notion kept perturbing me over existentialism: did we create the deity or did it create us?

Nothing could be proven. I have glossed over sacred texts and could not attest their veracity.

To a certain dramatic degree, I saw something powerful in the faceless image of death itself.

The uningratiating image was unsympathetic and callous to that it showed no emotion at all.

I am around several people who are unstable and stable degrees at near constant contention.

It is impossible to get one side to either lose or win when both help balance a vicious cycle.

Surprisingly, I am one of the factors that help support the balance of the cycle in my friends.

Their impulsivity is driven by fate, as is mine, for our arbitrary interests supercede everything.

A dichotomy that represents the very division is very apparent through our internal affairs.

We are often restrained by Xypor, who is seen as a mediator, a judge, and a punisher.

He exhibits many roles that extenuate extend and even transcend beyond those positions.

In essence, our individuality is always at fault when we are thrown into and shaped by the outside world. Ironically, inside this facility, our individuality is confined and suppressed.

Our identity is dictated by purpose that is fulfilled by our destiny, fate, and cooperation.

It seems hopeless when our purpose is driven by the methodology of the machine itself.

Our very dreams are corrupted as if the operations of the machine could not detect anything.

Our very dreams are shattered when the cracks can be detected but not to a mental depth.

I am extremely ambivalent over my stance, since I was branded with the notion of defiance.

The revolution within my mind and body is starting, the overthrowal of the leader is in its midst, the monster of egoism blindly assaulting its enemy only to merely fall by its own doing.

The corruption will finally cease and true control will finally be instituted in the new system.

Without fear, the challenge is finally overcome with a sense of nationalist pride and power, endemic to all orders in the world that have set out any sense of constitution and government.

A pungent effect came with the onset of this revolution, thus, everything was under control.

I had finally managed to change myself over the course of several hours of reflection, the paltry concerned inflections of the surrounding teenage participants which could not be assuaged were mere trifles that could be easily ignored, minor impertinences to my truths.

I had become a new person, welcoming my comrades with open arms, yet I still remained distant from my faith in a supposed higher power, because I saw that I was a higher power.

Within the periphery of my range of thought, hanging on the fringe were the qualms of others.

When the disturbances finally slipped into a void of nothingness, annihilated, I was at peace.

Upon usurping the issues of control that left an impression of submission for most of my life,

I was reawakened at the urge of my concerned friends against my tapered power struggle.

Overcome with an elated feeling, I decided to wander the hallway, safeguarding my sanity.

I had the volition pushing me to my very limits almost instantaneously in my average jaunt.

I immediately walked through the hallway, only to find a bizarre plumage of white hair flow down like the thick snow of an imposing mountain. This figure possessed rather voluptuous sultry legs and mostly covered breasts. The girl turned around and looked at me, trembling without uttering a word. She was gripping a folder with confidential information. This girl wore glasses like most of us with an astute countenance that thankfully was never precocious.

The strange woman's clothing was as sumptuous and refined like her furtive coquettish grace.

Her dress, as I could only briefly observe was lined with at least six lines and a cross at the very crux on both her sides. Reading the black eyeliner made her appear rather alluring.

I saw the outline of a large circle at the center of the dress, between her covered nipples.

She was the only one of us who wore a sash embroidered with initials of the united nations.

Black peace signs were adorned atop her white gloves. Perhaps the oddest feature of this strange seductress was that she possessed an olive branch that was attached to her hair.

Within seconds, the woman immediately bolted away from me. I could see her flailing dress.

Her lustful hair was naturally flowing in the wind like the tall grass in a cool spring breeze.

The lady was still clasping the classified folder up to her breast, exasperating with her flashy temperament without losing her promiscuous elegance. My misogynist self was restrained.

Judging by her odd choice of clothing, I had the impression that she was a firm diplomat.

Since she seemed so esteemed and eccentric, I could discern that she was a secretary.

I judged that her age was similar to ours. Hopefully, international concerns will not bother us.

When the strange woman evaded from my sight, to my dismay, my friends approached me.

They informed me that the running recluse is identified as Dove, the elite secretary of Xypor.

Her personality can be best described as divided or derangement over her peace-loving fantasies to the point that she is extremely unruly outside of her conduct in her studies.

As result, she is very devoted and easily isolated from her former peers under a rich lifestyle.

She likely hails from an eastern occidental nation and serves as an excellent training partner.

Surprisingly, the woman can actually fend for herself with a fury of rapid punches and kicks.

Dove also has a strange device attached to her back that allows her to develop angelic wings.

The wings when in flight are fragile and can shatter from concentrated bullets. Heat seeking missiles, electromagnetic pulse weapons, and directed energy beams are all serious threats.

At the same time, her agility and maneuverability are very necessary for the need of stealth.

She has the strength to carry at least one person on her arms for a short time. Her small backpack can also hold a variety of weapons and can effectively use them while airborne.

Dove is also athletic on the ground and air and can perform a variety of astonishing stunts.

She enjoys harassing the enemy and bravely striking her enemy soundly and quickly.

Nothing is really much known about her connections with the actions of the KRAD Empire.

She is around our age but still has things to learn with regard to her poor social skills.

Like the others of our group, she is not totally unstable but prone to grieving under stress.

She is usually very energetic but somewhat of a recluse due to abandoning her parents.

The only things we know was that her dignified parents were inventors of the flying device.

Dove is a worthy adversary, as she, like all of us, is the pilot of her very destiny and freedom.

She has always wanted to fly, and her newfound confidence in us will surely bring wonders.

Dove is seen as the mediator of the groups at the location. She is the one who settles arguments on a frequent basis. She, like Wenqian, is able to deal with situations almost immediately, her mind and body united. She is extremely skilled as a junior politician.

With the aid of her capabilities, she plays many roles like Xypor, yet is a subordinate.

There are rumors going around that Xypor uses her for favors that none of us would ever do.

George told me that she is usually a quiet one who speaks laconically outside of political rhetoric. We are easily disturbed by her means of quashing any disturbances rather quickly.

The remains of her thoughts are left by developing patterns and connections between history.

Her life was very sheltered like Spectra prior to her elated confidence being lifted, free at last.

She frequently had bouts of anxiety and still does now. I seek to help her. I am still hoping that Mark has not found her, yet it was already too late, as Mark divulged me everything about her.

He told me of her roosting figure and corpulence upon elevating over her once fledgling state.

He was ecstatic of her freely eclectic personality and her licentious appearance most of all.

I could already imagine his dreams of hedonistic pleasure under his rapturing indulgence.

He confided a thought in moderation, and the notion of pleasure imagined him ejaculating.

Due to his sexual tones, Mark would offer terms to describe her with avian characteristics.

One of the many things that he would say was that he would love to ruffle her feathers or to go pecking at her hole. Even the mere mentioning of 'fly away' easily irked and vexed her.

The salience of Dove was prominent with a vigorous mirth, especially in bed, Mark insinuates.

His crass demeanor toward Dove bothered me, as I saw her as a guardian instead of a slave.

The dissolution of his thoughts shattered my perceptions of her, for he enjoyed her jaunts.

Mark loved her and ignored the single forming abscess smothered with black makeup.

The others were not interested in her temperament or banal, brusque, bureaucratic interests.

She disliked any actions that possessed a surly intention that led to chaos and disorder.

As soon as the befuddlement had lifted off my shoulders, I continued walking with my friends.

Soon, I came across the quarters of Xypor, he was ready to speak to the six of us again.

He then showed us to Dove again. To my dismay, I was surprised to see her imperious look.

I surmised that she appeared to me more than a stolid border guard, not a giddy pleasure girl.

She went to great lengths to keep the peace, for she was a certified orator and policymaker.

Everything changed from there beyond her very formal introduction and very first impression.

She immediately opened her mouth to utter a simple hello with a calm and soothing voice.

I then responded with a simple terse tone of voice, simply restrained, "Hello, Miss Dove."

Her sparse vocabulary showed no incongruence, which satisfied my simple vernacular.

"So, I see you're the new fella. I just came in here with your records. Here's the access card."

I was most surprised by the offering with such advanced technology, complete with my DNA signature and identification imprinted, almost instantly, through an advanced machine.

"Thank you." she presented a warm smile of gratitude, batting her eyes with sheer delight.

With vertiginous clarity, I was reminded of the seminal benefits of female KRAD members.

Even if the organization possessed all-female battalions and offered high government positions and equal rights, the seminal efforts still kept our aspiring spirits of equality high.

Regardless, whenever I imagined the idea that women were always being used, Dove was the only exception to this rule. Though I have heard accusations, she has admitted that she did not have relations with Mark or any affairs with any members of the DREAM company.

"Tell me, Miss Dove, what are the limits of this device? I want to know everything about it."

I was looking at the key card, scrutinizing it with an extreme precision even on the edges.

Retrieved from the dossier Dove carried with my records, it contained my credentials.

"Well, if you must know..." The woman responded with a monotonic discourse to all of us.

"How about something simple, for your sake..." I was trying to be helpful for her sake.

"This card will allow you to access the portion of the compound. All the tabs on the tips of here are color coded. When the scanner reads them, the doors open. There are green, yellow, red, and black areas. Each of these contain significant areas. The green areas are for safe areas. The yellow areas are reserved for scientific areas. The red areas are for armories. The black areas are classified and are reserved for high ranking personnel..." She struggled to finish her statement as she chirped and parroted the information that Xypor told her like a tour guide.

"Your mom!" George ejaculated with his comedic word of mouth. We were all shocked by this statement, yet the orator silenced her thoughts permanently. Being impugned disturbed her.

We were supplicating for her response, as she teetered like a funambulist, yet she was tired.

The furtherance of our anticipation could not be quashed like the fragility of the bird itself.

Instantly she recollected her words, "Xypor and I are the only few who can enter here."

"Now if you'll be asking me if you can ask my permission to do this, you can't. I'm sorry."

She turned to all of us and peered into our eyes closely like an owl without any derogation.

Under the camaraderie of the delight, I was welcomed with open arms. I flew with boundaries.

The open space was still judged by the jurisdiction of the incontrovertible laws of nature itself.

Based on the very open space, I could judge myself and my actions along those of others.

The others then showed me their access cards, showing all colors except black.

"Excuse me, Miss Dove, where are the other people on this installation?" I interposed to her.

"If you must know, they are all working at the lower floors of the installation, the ones inside a deep underground cavity. Unlike you six, the volunteers, scientists, researchers, and defense coordinators are allowed to access the rooms which correspond to their profession. High ranking military officials can enter here. The people are alerted of any risks through the advanced security system in the complex. The scanners potentially may have mistook you as a security risk. It must have been some technological anomaly. They usually don't do this. We'll have to run some more tests. Don't worry, I'm also the one with a knack for machinery."

"Where are the bedrooms? When do we have to get up? Do we have any jobs to do?"

"Your living quarters are all named, neatly arranged in a row, and accessible by the different barcodes. Spectra, you'll be able to phase through your marked door without any pain. The group will be able to show you your room. They've all been saying it's pretty comfortable. It doesn't matter what time it will be when you get up. For your daily itinerary, you'll have to report for the daily training sessions in the specific locations. You will have some down time. You are not able to leave the installation at any point in time. All outside communications have been cut off. The public does not know about this location, its contents, or its whereabouts."

I was astonished by this revelation through how the place is totally hidden from the public eye.

"Everything is nicely prepared for you all. Enjoy your stay at the DREAM Headquarters."

"Thanks. I hope to see you again Miss Dove." We all left the room safely and soundly. I could see suspicious Xypor gazing at me through the fringes of his sunglasses. As soon as we left the room, the hallways were sprawling with busy DREAM officials. Life had finally come again.


	9. Chapter 8: DREAM and Reality

I was venturing to my new empty room with my comrades. As the hallways were packed with moving DREAM personnel, I clamored for the quickest way to reach my personal residence.

My heart was racing with excitement, knowing that I would finally have a new place to live.

At the same time, I reflected on the paucity of any chance of reconciling with my past.

What surprised me most of all was the fact that other than Xypor, the men were amiable.

Perhaps due to the pressing prerogatives of the employees, trying to conceal their secrets,

the agents had developed this intimidating, audacious personage toward any intruders.

Among the disparities, I still subsumed my sense of feeling in the presence of cold adults.

I encountered Dove skipping past me without her noticing, as if she flew by my side.

Something stimulated me about those diaphanous wings of hers, fragile and graceful, as they protruded from the sides of a metallic backpack. The girl never even turned to smile at me.

My senses imagined her as a form of angel, yet the synthetic wings appeared thin as glass.

I only saw a glimpse of the wings before they vanished with the light fading into nothingness.

I found my name on the door that was electronically typed in the typical occidental vernacular.

Swiping the specially marked key card, I found that the few things available in the room were a clock with military time, a bunk bed, a cabinet, and a mirror that was thankfully undamaged.

After setting up my dwelling, I went to be fed the nightly dinner provisions at a large cafeteria.

I followed my friends toward the cafeteria, carefully noticing their giddy strides as they walked.

The bins were filled with a manifold of international delicacies, pleasing the senses of the teens, forcing the others to charge to the tables and stuff themselves while I had trouble with deciding which food was good to eat, as much of the food was succulent to my preferences.

When I sat down, the discussions at the table were profound. One of the things blabbered on about was the idea about me being touted as some kind of new addition to the team. I listened and discovered that I was slated to be the replacement for one missing member.  
Something had also surprised me was that the former person also hailed from my birth region.

I never heard of the person's name. All I heard from his former occupation was that he was a freedom fighter who worked for one of the slew of private security companies in the region.

He had performed quite well on several dangerous combat and escort missions, and had developed a fondness for the paranormal entity he encountered and formed a kinship with.

It was another female ghost, one originating from my region, among many worldwide.

Spectra informed me that there are other supernatural beings who have joined the ranks of DREAM and KRAD, yet their existence, like myths and legends, remains of mere mystery.

Even the governments of third world nations have denied the existence of these beings.

They were likely under pressure from officials who held power even higher than the leaders.

The government officials had supposedly also hushed up their involvement in UFO schemes, according to Mark, a person obsessed with conspiratorial matters that denied explanation.

He professed during lunch that the world was ready to receive the confidential information,

for the time of destruction was at hand, as a game was being played within our organization.

These hoaxes, perpetrated by Mark and his dedicated cabal of brothers, have declared that everything was observed within the distinct logos of the two groups: an eye and a cloud.

Though the iconography was simply black and white, the vague designs reflected meaning.

They were the prominent symbols of enlightenment and disillusionment in very broad forms.

Both had become emblems of a new judgmental order bounded with grave consequences.

I eschewed myself from the conflict of knowing that both would still remind me of danger.

The persisting thoughts of being a puppet disturbed my shambolic soul as it shook in disorder.

Though I had pronounced my liberation, I yearn to fight for my independence and my family.

With respect to the only friend I had under the KRAD organization due to me being socially awkward, only Reenitum, they hopefully will have the fortitude to break themselves free from their shackles. Though I do not believe in such a god, I believe that fate will draw us together.

I had a cause that elevated me above men, yet I wanted to mete punishment just like Xypor.

Though he may see me through a lense of deception and perfidy, I believe he has feelings.

I respect the differences of my comrades, the resentment related to instances in the media.

There were issues when people couldn't speak their minds, yet under KRAD, those died out.

The obsession with technological marvels were not even the pinnacle of the KRAD power.

That did not matter to me at all when none of those designs were used to help people at all.

They were left to be vulnerable as victims, just as nearly all nations, under a looming threat.

Terrorism was the major concern of the past, a state of anarchy, yet the battle was in the soul.

Due to the intense media coverage, the threat, according to Mark, was grown by the KRAD propaganda complex.

The thousands and thousands of men, women, and children dying prompted the recruitment to grow and grow like a virus, and I was nearly one of their hosts. I still vaguely remember that one man fled from the KRAD defense force simply due to the fact that he wasn't paid enough.

We never did anything to appease the itinerant deserter, nor we did anything to eliminate him.

However, that was before a time when our state had the revolution serving the people before the people were serving the revolution. They were not slaves or puppets who respected KRAD, for the revolution developed a personality cult for our leadership hidden in shadows.

Security rose with the general welfare, and the dictatorship had instilled democratic elements.

The exposed faces of the new revolution were still the same prominently sad shells as before.

Any discordance for the elite was intolerable, for the risk of reproaching it was still very fatal.

Yet still, with our conflict being a battle of the soul, such freedoms were readily obfuscated.

In addition to the ambiguity that KRAD perpetuated, its mutability was a grave threat to us all.

Just as Mark and George, both originating from the same country, reminded of their country's intervention in the middle east, expressed much demurral in having to fight off corporations. It seemed to be a heavy price paid for having to betray a cause that is not worth fighting for. Everyone under KRAD was not a slave but a desirable customer to the corporatist agenda. Inevitably, we would have to change, and revolution did not simply mean changing the price. The Empire took many forms, and perhaps the most prominent of the manifestations are actually developing within ourselves, for we are the expendable products of a business model. Now, without being noticed, we were exploited like the civilians under a terrorist occupation. Being aptly called to serve the aspiring everlasting DREAM in our hearts, we resist the fear. The corporations exist to satisfy the demands and desires of the people, yet scandals rise.

Amidst the reproaching by the deserters of KRAD, we faced the nightmare that haunts us.

I have managed to let the fear no longer possess me, no longer lead to the annihilation of the self.

However, the others were still disturbed by the thoughts of saving the free world.

To us, freedom was not true for every one of the victims, since a price was paid all the time.

As I cope with meeting the other lead officers and hopefully becoming good friends with them, I intend to help attend to the needs of DREAM on negotiable terms in future confrontations. I was thrown into a juncture that I could not escape, following the state of affairs of DREAM.

Even though the organization has many members, it is still extremely prevalent in its efforts to rebuild the cities ruined by the war. Backed by the cordons of private security contractors, it ensures the survivability of its new technology. Some of its advanced weapons are melee based, meaning that there are plasma blades and spears with electromagnetic shocking tips. The arsenal is truly made by a wide array of ranged armaments, guns of all shapes and sizes.

There was a sense of excruciating equity for all its members and their ensconced secrets.

I was enthused by the benefits that DREAM gave to me, yet they seemed similar to KRAD.

Our punishments as ex-KRAD members were extenuated when a greater threat was at large.

After eating lunch, we went for another training session, and I was once again haunted by the nightmares of the past. This time, the issue was me killing my first target during my first engagement. I remember moving out with the rest of the troops in a file, one being my best friend Reenitum. Watching the roaring wind of the engines from the transport vehicles made me feel empowered in our technology. Attacking the enemy forces were garrisons of tanks and armored jeeps. Something was possessing me to shoot a radical deserter whose group was encamped near a makeshift military base. I could remember that I was blinded by the scorching sun during that day, along with the rest of us, making all of us wear reflective glasses. As soon as I saw a shadow that did not belong to me, I fired my pistol into the distance. A body dropped dead amidst screaming, shouting, and shooting. I made the first kill, delighted and dumbfounded. Immediately, something had changed inside me, forcing me to let out my emotions with every bullet fired in the ground aimed where my victim fell dead. I ran for cover, ducking behind a rock as men were dying, reloading and panicking.

Yet I immediately subsumed by feelings as the carnage continued and more bodies fell.

Obsolete enemy tanks once produced decades ago were wrecked in seconds by our rockets.

Enemy fireteams were disparate and dispatched through our grenades and machine guns.

The fact that I saw more blood spilled in the actual battle than my brush with death by enemy drones made me shiver as armed transport helicopter gunships arrived to pick our troops up after the firefight quickly subsided. Many of us were wounded, yet I could see smiles on the victims' faces as they went to shake hands and cry with tears of joy among their pain.

One of those wounded was Reenitum, hit by a grenade and hollering my name in pain.

I approached him as I ran to a stretcher being pulled under his wearing back. We smiled and exchanged pleasantries while under intense stress induced by the chaos of the fighting.

After the invading deserters were repelled, I spoke on television with a KRAD state reporter.

My flashback then shifted to several months later when I was on leave to tend to Reenitum.

Fortunately, thanks to our medical advancement, he was treated in a hospital where I visited him regularly during my stint as a soldier. He then wanted to be in the internal troops division.

I emotionally helped him back to recovery yet my leave was permanent. A few months later, Reenitum was back on the field and fighting alongside me in our propaganda-imbued military campaign. We were the ones who instilled hope in our honor and the honor of our comrades.

Our troops and our morale was unchallenged as we eliminated much resistance to KRAD.

The corporatist agenda of our military industrial complex rallied the public against injustices.

We protected and served our families who had become workers and national militia soldiers.

I could see nothing but the brainwashed all being batteries, powering an enormous machine.

Reenitum and I were loyal comrades in arms, yet for the times we remained separated, we were connected to the destruction that the conflict brought for all of us in the KRAD army.

After my supposed fall from grace, the time that I turned myself away from KRAD, I supposedly left the organization in order to pursue my self interests against all indictments.

With the knowledge of good and evil, my morality was left in the middle of a storm of anger.

There was some notion of expediency when I found a rather odd sense of joy in murder itself. I felt like something was consuming me with every passing day, for I did not want to die.

Across the bifurcated path, the lines were blurred and misconstrued on my path to power.

I went to my room quietly, locked the door, and gazed into the mirror. George was knocking.

Suddenly, I was surprised to find that someone would easily disturb me when at peace.

I quickly opened the door and greeted George with the stereotypical traditional "Howdy" lingo.

"Leber! Quick! Follow me! We have urgent business to take care of! KRAD business!"

"What is it?" I interposed immediately, both hesitant and ecstatic for something to do.

"No time to explain! We need to report to the vehicle garage immediately! Xypor's orders!"

Immediately, I was surprised that the fear in his voice had insinuated the notion of KRAD.

We then bolted down the hallways and joined with the other members of HOPE. All of us converged from different hallways and charged into entered the vehicle garage. The garage was filled with white united nations cars, trucks, tanks, and aircraft. Xypor caught our attention by hiding behind a tank and we were surprised, yet not scared for the very faint of heart.

Suddenly, we were caught off guard with Dove perching above a large stack of crates and spreading open her fragile wings. The girl abruptly landed on her feet after a single hard flap.

"Greetings, fellow compatriots. I am delighted to announce that you six all have a new task."

We were all excited to hear Xypor inform us of our new special counterterrorism mission.

"Your mission is to track down and capture a key general in the OSIRIS terrorist group."

He showed us an image of the enemy with his black garb, unkempt beard and corpulent build.

"His name is Jihadi Joe. There are reports that his group has seized many oil fields and has claimed a cave to be the heavily guarded base of operations, converted into a military base. OSIRIS, according to possible sources, is extremely large in size and has possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Jihadi Joe has ignored negotiations and simply wants us dead. Local reports say we need to capture Jihadi Joe alive. The man must be brought to justice."

Something also struck me about the past as I have fought members of this group before.

Only beforehand, the OSIRIS membership had not extrapolated to over a hundred thousand.

I then approached Xypor with questions of candor about the motives of suspicious Jihadi Joe.

"I would like to know if this man has any connections with KRAD. He seems awfully evil."

"Of course. His fanaticism is extremely biased for the business model of the KRAD agenda. He serves like a bloody revolutionary and a ruthless arm of aggressive religious justice."

I surmised a question for Dove. "Dove, do you have any idea for how we'll catch Jihadi Joe?"

"If you insist, we will have to launch a sneak attack after we drop right near the front lines."

Xypor then spoke after her, pointing to a small military transport aircraft. "We will have to make use of one of the jeeps and a large jet. Wenqian, you can fly this thing, right?"

"Of course, Xypor, sir!" Wenqian announced to the group and saluted to him with exuberance.

"George, Mark, Leber, Aria, get the guns and bombs. We'll send in a small force to aid you."

"Excellent!" All of us were happy for our new especially dangerous mission ahead of us.

We were prepared to load our supplies onto a carrier aircraft modified with highly advanced controls and weapons systems, the most striking feature being its stealth capability.

"Wow, Xypor! This thing sure is expensive!" announced George to the rest of us with pride.

"This thing is one of our most advanced aircraft. Our testers call it the Malaika. This plane can deliver quite a message with state of the art targeting systems, missiles, and machine guns."

"You're really thinking of sending Wenqian to pilot this beauty? Xypor, I'm definitely up to-"

"No George! Last time you tried to fly you nearly broke your flight stick!" Wenqian boasted.

I was almost disturbed by the thought of a teenager flying an airplane without it crashing.

The pilot revealed her fealty with folded files containing her license. She familiarized herself with the controls, donning her personal helmet inscribed with "liberator" in her language.

We felt ourselves rumbling in our seats as the turbulence started and we took off within five minutes. Xypor was shouting to us saying that it would take five hours to reach the target.

He quickly handed Wenqian a map of the surrounding territory of the mountain by the base.

The leader then assured us that we were taking the right route with the least resistance.

The plane was quickly in motion along the runway and we took off to many people waving.

I waved to my brothers on the ground and was suddenly approached by VTOL fighter planes with the symbols of the united nations on their wings, large side rocket engines, and tail fins.

Our impetuous pilot was busy stuffing some grenades she made herself into her purse, which she claimed that simply created harmless singularity fields that could drastically alter gravity.

I then decided to go for a long nap with knowing that the amenities of our allies will aid us.

The others were preparing to rest as well, while I kept my rifle close to me on my cold lap.

Suddenly, we all woke up to the intensity of the turbulence and explosions in the clouds.

Something was horribly wrong with the misery of the picture that was uncomfortable to see.

"What's going on?!" I screamed to the pilot as I got up and gripped onto the safety handle.

"Our stealth capabilities have gone nowhere! Why did those designers paint this black?!"

"We've been detected by the terrorists! We need to land!" I quickly counted forty red dots.

"They're hitting us with pretty heavy artillery!" Wenqian screamed as she turned the plane.

We were all narrowly thrown into the other side of the plane from the impact of the blasts.

"You know what else is hitting us with heavy artillery?" Mark ejaculated with giddiness.

"Shut up!" The shaking from an explosive rocket nearly launched her helmet off her head.

We jumped up in our seats and saw that Spectra vanished by flying right through the roof.

"Spectra! What the hell!" Mark was spooked yet he stayed in his seat with fain of his safety.

"Five-hundred meters to dropping point! We're making our descent!" We could see rockets.

"Don't tell me we're that close!" Aria screamed to the pilot. We were no longer forbearing.

"Well, some ignoramus decided to put a big red x where there's the most activity!" After we descended through a sea of clouds, warnings were sounding as OSIRIS jets soared. Under the duress, we could vaguely see the cordons of antiaircraft artillery pieces placed in front of the cavern base, which oddly looked like a crenelated pyramid that didn't belong in our desert.

"Hang on to something!" Wenqian pressed the buttons that fired the air to ground rockets.

The united nations VTOL planes were firing a barrage of rockets that blew up the OSIRIS jets.

"One hundred meters to target! Fifty!" She then quickly engaged the autopilot. "Jump! Now!" Without any sense of sagacity, the five of us jumped out single file with a hapless view of life.

We all landed safely in the sand with our weapons intact and prepared to race to the base.

Immediately, we faced a pair of angry terrorists spouting derisions in the language of my home country. They quickly readied their assault rifles and cocked them as they insulted.

Through what I could only translate under black masks that covered their aggressive mouths was simply revealed to be: "Die infidels! For the glory of the new everlasting Islamic State!"

Suddenly, the terrorists' belts were unfastened and their black pants fell on the dirty sand.

We sniggered at their black underwear with white squiggly lines inscribing their jihadist faith.

The belts were writhing on the ground like a pair of snakes ready to strike their prey.

Our group was in shock as much as the terrorists, the fear forcing us to take a few steps back.

The guns were snatched out of their hands and was aimed at their big petulant noses.

The crazy terrorists retreated like maniacs for fear of their lives but we never shot back.

"Yeah! You better run!" shouted George as the terrorists reduced themselves to shadows.

Spectra immediately appeared before us, laughing heartily as she floated above the sands.

"Boo!" the phantress shrieked in front of us with her intimidating stance, her fangs revealed.

"AAAAHHHHH!" screamed George, while the rest of us were unphased by one of her tricks.

"Ha! Ha! Those buggers never knew what hit them! I must've really spooked them senseless!"

"Did those terrorists see you when you hit the ground?" I questioned her without the slightest thought of paranormal activity in the real world and how the dichotomy of the two is distorted.

"I'm a ghost! I don't fall! Those bloody seatbelts sure don't help my kind. Absolute bollocks!" "Enough talk! We need to get to the base immediately! I've just detected more of the lot!" Wenqian yelled to us all, "We need to break their artillery formations as soon as possible!"

"There's no time!" interposed Aria, "You don't know how obsolete military tactics work!"

"Here they come!" spouted George as he pointed to a squadron of racing OSIRIS jets preparing for an attack run, "Get down!" We all scrambled to the dirt and rolled from the bullets. One of the bullets managed to bore straight through the middle of Wenqian's hair.

We immediately jumped up and saw that no blood suddenly spilled out from her head.

Immediately, she was possessed by an unrelenting paroxysm that demanded vengeance.

She suddenly gripped her hair by her naked hands and, with shock, withdrew a steel wrench.

Pressing a button on the handle, she produced a small electric shock in between the jaws.

"Where are they?! Bring it on your dirty assholes! Here's a shocking experience for you all!"

"Wenqian, what are you doing!" Aria jumped in front of her and gently pushed at the handle.

"Those bastards have managed to barely miss me, but they will _never_ ruin my image! Ever!"

We immediately were approached by another lot of the men wearing black headscarves, and we were forced to flee at the sight of the monsters, forcing us to hide behind an OSIRIS tank.

"There's too many of them!" screamed Aria. Suddenly, united nations aircraft were roaring in the skies, flying faster than we could see them, and the terrorists vanished into fiery smoke.

"So! I was saying! Let's ignore the artillery and pierce through the interior of the fortress!"

Something was truly disturbing me as I thought to myself "_this girl must be totally crazy!"_

"Yes, I do know that it's dangerous, and I know we will fight a lot of those terrorists! You forgot about these while you were sleeping! These gravity altering grenades I invented better work!"

"Good job, genius! What if they don't work?" Aria yelped, "You must be trying to get us killed!"

"Come on guys! We still have some ways to go!" sounded Spectra, waving her hands.

"You heard the phantress! We need to stop Jihadi Joe!" Mark smiled, staying close to her.

We could see the OSIRIS base through the middle of the big hole in Wenqian's ruined hair.

We were approached by wave after wave of terrorists with guns blazing in their dirty trucks.

We quickly ran past the terrorists toward Jihadi Joe's compound, shooting the belts off their pants and causing them to run humiliated with their pants down. Facing another group of terrorists near the entrance, Aria quickly threw a high impact grenade near the door, making a big explosion. The enemy militants jumped out of the way, their weapons launched into the air. Just as we were about to enter the room, we watched the united nations planes flying overhead conduct more airstrikes on the dwindling forces of the enemy artillery pieces.

The terrorists were shocked, likely because of the fact we were not normal teenagers. Xypor propounded to us over the handheld communications link on Aria's cellular phone that he electronically sent us a downloaded map of the compound that thankfully wasn't a paper map.

We ran through several rooms toward the vantage point and faced the enemy at every corner.

We hoped that Jihadi Joe wasn't killed by the airstrikes or had already escaped beforehand.

The former portentous premonition was disproved when there was no debris from the roof.

Thankfully, with the radar detecting terrorist heat signatures, we found more of the monsters.

Immediately, in the room before the leader's private bunker, we were cornered by twelve men.

We stopped to watch the terrorists aggregate outside the door at the other side of the room.

"Get back!" Wenqian yelled as she quickly withdrew a grenade and turned a dial with measurements which she claimed were the units of acceleration, something odd for a bomb.

We all jumped out of the way as the detonated grenade made a field that acted like a barrier.

The terrorists opened fire and the bullets suddenly flew straight up to the ceiling like magnets.

"Whatever you do, don't step into it! The field's going to disappear after a couple seconds!"

One terrorist charged into the gravity field with his knife but immediately flew up to the ceiling.

The field disappeared into nothingness and the enemy, knife, and bullets fell to the ground unconscious. We jumped at the potential of altered gravity in the range of a set dimension.

"You can go now!" Wenqian asserted with a smile while the rest of us were bewildered.

Immediately, we were confronted by Jihadi Joe in his compound alone, yet something was off. He appeared horribly emaciated, tired, and was wounded with scratch marks on his arms.

Joe was not intimidating to us when he had no knife or black garb or indecisive glare at all.

His defeated look made us surprised to find his unkempt room in shambles beyond compare.

"This is Jihadi Joe? More like Jihadi Joke!" George pronounced for the rest of us to reproach.

I quickly retrieved a stack of neatly organized papers by the corner and read the one on the very top of the stack in my language. The one word that struck out to me was "nightmare".

I kept the objects out from the sight of the united nations troops that snatched Joe up without any sense of remorse. I could hear Joe protest in a language that has lost faith in itself.

Perhaps the inner demons within him could not longer be repressed and he is dying inside.

War can do terrible things and torture our psyche to the point when we can stand life itself.

My group and I flew home in the Malaika to cries of 'We got em!' and 'Mission Accomplished!'.

As the revelry of drinks and socializing became ever more rampant as Jihadi Joe was swiftly brought to the justice of DREAM behind closed doors, we were thrilled by the congratulations.

However, something beyond my control was putting me on edge, something from the past.

"Leber..." I heard a faint whisper after the nightly celebration, amidst the grave intoxication.

"Who is it?" I was very tired, yet I didn't recall having anything to ruin my senses at the party. My door was not locked.

"You know who it is? It's Reenitum. Wake up." Now, the DREAM was no longer worth living.


End file.
